


Illusions of the Light

by ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi



Series: Irondad & Spiderson Dabbles [15]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Peter Parker, BAMF Tony Stark, Blood and Injury, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Comfort/Angst, Death, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Peter Parker, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kid Peter Parker, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Kidnapping, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark Coparenting Peter Parker, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent Tony Stark, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Mess, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Tags Contain Spoilers, Teen Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22146745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi/pseuds/ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi
Summary: OnApril 15, 2005, there was a mysterious private plane crash in Midwestern America. The plane originally took off from JFK Internal Airport, New York and was headed towards San Fransisco International Airport, California. The passengers aboard were well-respected scientists and their families, but unfortunately, neither any of them nor the crew aboard survived. Officials say that there was a malfunction in the plane itself that brought it down, despite rumors of a terrorist attack.There were no attempts to escape the cabin found, but somehow, not all of the passengers were found. The body of a youngPeter Benjamin Parker, four-year-old son of scientists Mary and Richard Parker, was unable to be found. It is unlikely he survived the crash, but please be on the lookout in the southern Iowa area, for his aunt and uncle are looking for him. He was last seen wearing blue sweatpants, a red, dinosaur shirt, and a grey sweater. He's a white, caucasion male about 36 inches tall with curly brown hair. If you have any information, please contact the following number...
Relationships: Hydra Agents & Peter Parker, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Steve Rogers, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Series: Irondad & Spiderson Dabbles [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1169708
Comments: 160
Kudos: 697
Collections: Skimming_Through18





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are Aun’ May and Unca Ben gonna be there?”
> 
> “Aunt May’s sick, remember, Petey?” Richard explained. “Uncle Ben has to stay in New York and take care of her, and that’s why you’re coming with us instead of having a sleepover there.”
> 
> “Can we call them whe’ we get off the plane?” Peter asked.
> 
> “Of course,” the man smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW for a plane crash, kidnapping**

**April 15, 2005**

“Come on now, sweet pea. You’re falling behind.”

“‘M coming, mommy!”

The little boy picked up his pace, dragging a small suitcase behind him and the toys in his backpack audibly bouncing around as he ran up to his parents. He grabbed his mom’s hand, wanting to stay close in the busy airport. 

“I thought you were the fastest around, slow-poke. What’s up?” his father teased.

“‘T’s not my fault!” he pouted.”My suitcase and packpack are slowin’ me down.”

The two adults laughed at how defensive their son got about his speed and his poor pronunciation of ‘backpack’. “Yeah, Richard. He has drag slowing him down,” the woman laughed.

“Well, maybe I can beat him in a race, finally.”

“Can we wace now?” the boy bounced excitedly.

“No, sweet pea. Sorry,” Mary apologized, frowning when she saw the disappointed look on her son’s face. “It’s too busy here, you understand?”

“Yeah, I ‘nders’and.” he frowned. The boy had an advanced vocabulary for his age, but his mouth sometimes had difficulty making his mouth form the words.

“You can run around all you like when we get to the hotel in San Francisco. Sound good?” Richard asked.

“Mhm!” the boy beamed. “Are Aun’ May and Unca Ben gonna be there?”

“Aunt May’s sick, remember, Petey?” Richard explained. “Uncle Ben has to stay in New York and take care of her, and that’s why you’re coming with us instead of having a sleepover there.”

“Can we call them whe’ we get off the plane?” Peter asked.

“Of course,” the man smiled. 

“When’s boarding?” Mary asked Richard. 

“Uh…” he checked their boarding pass and his watch. “About fifteen minutes.”

"We should get to the terminal."

"We're almost there, don't worry."

Peter toddled along, standing in between his parents and looking around. Everything in the airport was so... big! It was big, bright, and exciting-- everything the boy loved. His mom and dad told him that they might be able to go to the beach while they were in California, which was even more exciting. It was a different ocean than the home by home, they said. Peter wanted to find out which ocean was better.

"Is it a big plane, daddy?" he looked up at his father, never letting go of his mom's hand.

"Not really," he explained. "You remember how this trip is for mommy and my work?"

"Uh-huh!"

“Well, since it’s a work trip and there’s a bunch of people who work with us going, there’s a special plane just for us,” Richard knew that their son was nervous about the flight-- he had never been on one before, after all. However, both he and Mary were hoping that if he didn’t sleep most of the time, he’d at least have fun. “It’s a small plane with just us and the people we work with. Some of their families too, like you.” He ran a hand through the boy’s curls.

Peter giggled, smiling widely. “Is Missus Torres bringin’ Emma?” 

“I don’t know,” Mary replied this time. Emma was a girl a few years older than Peter who he liked to play with sometimes. “We’ll have to see.”

It seemed impossible, but the boy’s smile only grew. “Mhm! I coul’ show her Piggy!”

The two Parker adults exchanged soft looks. It was adorable how easily excitable their son was, and how he called the stuffed pink stuffed bear ‘Piggy’-- they had thought they were having a girl, originally, so they got the pink bear instead of the blue one. That color was his whole argument on how Piggy was a pig and not just a pink bear-- However, they were so happy to have gotten their Peter and Piggy had always been his favorite toy. 

“I’m sure Emma will love Piggy,” Mary squeezed his hand a bit. He squeezed back, trotting along happily as they neared their terminal. “Alright, here we are. Now we just need to wait our turn to get on the plane.”

Peter nodded a bit, sheepishly hiding behind his mother’s legs. He was excited to see his friend, if she was there, but he was still shy around all the new people. He knew some of the people his parents worked with, but not all. Certainly not the people in front of them in line.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re alright,” his mother assured, handing her backpack off to Richard and lifting Peter up into her arms. The boy then proceeded to bury his face into Mary’s shoulder. 

“I think someone’s a little tired,” Richard teased, poking the boy’s side which caused him to squirm.

“No ‘m not..”

“Maybe just a little bit?”

“Nuh-uh..!”

“But you ran around so much before we left!”

“‘M not tired. Just like mommy’s hugs.”

“Aww,” Mary cooed, heart-melting as she held him tighter. “Well, mommy loves your hugs too.”

The line didn’t take all that long to get through, maybe five minutes at most, before they got on the plane. It was a redeye flight, meaning it was late at night, so the cabin was quiet. The Parkers exchanged pleasantries quietly as they took their seats, and it was clear that Peter was a little more tired than he let on originally. However, as stubborn as he was, the child denied this entirely. Emma wasn’t there, so he opted on reading one of the books he brought instead. 

Despite only being in pre-school, Peter was already reading at a second-grade level. He was just as smart as his mom and dad, people liked to say. It always made him happy, but right now, he was a little too tired to go off on one of his little rambles. 

Peter was about to fall asleep, actually, when a flight attendant-- the only one-- bumped him accidentally. “Hello?” he asked sleepily, causing the woman to halt.

“Hello…” The attendant answered. She wasn’t a pleasant seeming woman, looking cold, but something in her expression changed when she saw him. Almost… pity, it seemed. However, it was a concept far too intense for a four-year-old to understand. 

“M’ name’s Peter,” He rubbed his eyes. “What’s your name?”

She seemed to hesitate. “Anastasia.”

“That’s a pretty name,” Peter mumbled, laying his head back against the seat, eyes drifting shut. 

Anastasia smiled sadly at the boy, reevaluating things for a moment before snapping herself out of that risky, traitorous train of thought. Still, she placed a little chocolate chip cookie on top of his open book. “Sleep well, _rebenok_...” And with that, the child promptly fell asleep against his already sleeping mother’s arm. 

Peter probably would’ve slept through the rest of the flight if panic hadn’t started all around him. One moment, he was asleep, and the next, an oxygen mask was being forced on him by his mother, who also was wearing one. It was uncomfortable, and he tried to take it off, but Mary took his wrists. She had tears in her eyes, which brought some to his own. “No, no baby. You have to keep that on. You have to keep that on, okay?”

“Mommy?” His lip quivered, terrified. Everyone looked so scared, what was happening? “Wha’s going on?”

“It’s okay, Petey,” she held him close, and out the window beside his father-- who was pulling his own oxygen mask on-- he saw them losing altitude. Fast. Too fast.

“We’re-- we’re… _falling._ ” He cried, tears falling. Richard wrapped his arms around them, trying to keep them calm. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Mary cried silent tears herself, and she knew her husband was too. It wasn’t okay, but… but they couldn’t say that.

The ground was getting closer. So much closer. Alarms were sounding as cries filled the cabin. 

“I-I’m scared!” Peter clutched onto his parents, hiccuping as he became hysterical. 

“I know… I know,” Mary tried to reassure. “I’m scared too, but… we love you, Peter. We love you _so_ much…!”

Suddenly Richard unbuckled himself and threw himself over his wife and son. Before either could say anything, they crashed. All Peter could remember was fear, and then pain, and then… nothing. He was knocked out by the impact.

When he eventually woke up, just like the last thing he felt, the first thing Peter felt was agony. Everything hurt so much. There was a nasty gash on his head with blood that trickled down into his eyes, his nose was broken, and his leg along with several digits were broken. Second-degree burns littered his body from the fire that surrounded him, but he was alive. His heart was pumping still. 

“Daddy…” he cried softly. “Y-you’re hurting me. I-it _hurts!_ ”

His father didn’t answer, his body remaining slumped over him. It was a struggle, but eventually, Peter managed to get Richard off of him. It was agony, but leaving him on top of him hurt worse. Mary and Richard looked like they were sleeping, but something was deeply wrong. He couldn’t feel their heartbeats.

“Mommy?” Peter tried shaking her. “Mommy, wake up! P-Please, please! Wake up!”

From a distance, Peter could hear other voices, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. 

“H-Hello?” Peter practically screamed, tears flowing like rivers out of his eyes. “Please, p-please I-I need help! M-my mommy and d-daddy, they-- they w-won’t wake up!” 

Two scary looking men dressed in all back suddenly came into view now, but Peter didn’t care how they looked. He just wanted his mom and dad to be okay.

“A boy,” One said simply, his accent something Peter didn’t recognize, and pulled out a rather large gun as he approached him. 

“No… no no no!” Peter screeched, burying himself into his mother’s chest. His whole body was shaking, and he felt like he could breathe. He screamed when he heard the gun cock, far too close to him, but stopped as he heard another voice. 

“Wait.” The other man said, sounding closer. “We can use it. Is it repairable?”

The first man yanked him up off of his mother’s body by his shirt colored, causing Peter to scream and flail about. The men ignored it, the one holding him nodding. “Yes, there’s no permanent damage from what I can tell.”

“Bring it back then.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

**November 15, 2016**

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

The dummies fell to the ground one by one, a bullet in the head, chest, and neck. 

MXR-P616 put the gun down on the table, standing at attention when he heard the door open up. He didn’t, however, look over but instead stared straight ahead at where the dummies once stood.

“Soldat.” _Soldier._

Permission to face his commanding officer was given. Don’t look him in the eyes.

“Da ser?” _Yes, sir?_

“U vas yest' novoye naznacheniye. Soobshchite svoyemu administratoru nemedlenno.” _You have a new assignment. Report to your administrator immediately._

“Da ser.” _Yes, sir._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aye aye y'all, your local disaster is back at it again with another wack-ass story. I know I'm bad at consistency, but that's why I took the weekend to start planning the whole thing out. I wrote out the plot in bullet points up to chapter 10, and I have backstory shit and notes for certain key events all jotted down into a solid nine pages of notes (handwritten). Hopefully, that keeps me more motivated to write since I won't just be winging it, because I'm really excited to write this.
> 
> Anyways, I hope y'all enjoy it! It's gonna be hella angsty, but there'll be some soft dad times. Right now, I'm planning on a happy ending, but that may change. Also, I'm terrible at ending chapters, so sorry!  
> \--Samuel :)
> 
> (also, for the translations, I'm just using google translate since I know no Russian at all. Apologies ahead of time for inaccuracies)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Mal'chik." **Boy.** It was curt, but spoken with authority._
> 
> _"Da ser?" **Yes, sir?** he answered, flinching as he felt a sharp pain to the side of his face. His stance didn't waver, save for stiffening. That was all he was allowed though, less there were to be punishments._
> 
> _"YA govoril, chto ty umeyesh' govorit'?" **Did I say you could speak?** The man practically screamed, his spit landing on the boy's cheek. He couldn’t wipe it away though, not yet. That would come off as disrespectful and things would escalate to an extreme. Then, he’d have more than just spit to wipe off of himself. “Chto zh?” **Well?**_
> 
> _MXR-P616 didn’t answer in any way, having enough experience and scars to know that it was a trap._
> 
> _The man smirked mischievously after a moment. “Khm, umnyy.” **Hmph, smart.**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TW for abuse, blood, PTSD, and dehumanization (though there are going to be many mentions of that throughout this fic)**  
>  This chapter is heavily plot-driven, very little dialogue. It's just Peter's state of mind-- few original thoughts, focused on his objective. We'll get some dialogue in the next chapter though :)

**November 18, 2016**

MXR-P616 walked silently down the busy, chaotic streets of New York, easily blending into the crowds. He looked like he belonged there-- like a teenage boy on his way home from school. Black pants, a dark grey hoodie, black boots, and a backpack. It was just his suit underneath a hoodie, truth be told, but it did the job. He was wearing a pair of glasses as well, but they weren’t prescription. No, they were holographic, allowing the soldier to see his own vitals, pick up the files of passing by citizens if he needed, and tap into security footage. They also assisted in helping his enhanced vision stay focused and not become overwhelmed, entirely controlled by a specific series of blinks.

There were hundreds of thousands of new sights, sounds, and smells all surrounding him-- most of them foreign to him. MXR-P616 didn't let them distract him though, he couldn't afford that. He had an assignment, and that was all that mattered. He had the authority to terminate any distractions. Sure, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't the tiniest bit curious about the city, but those were the type of thoughts that had to be shut down immediately. If thoughts like those persisted, well... let's just say he likely wouldn't be getting any more assignments.

* * *

**_November 15, 2016_ **

_"Mal'chik."_ **_Boy._ ** _It was curt, but spoken with authority._

_"Da ser?"_ **_Yes, sir?_ ** _he answered, flinching as he felt a sharp pain to the side of his face. His stance didn't waver, save for stiffening. That was all he was allowed though, less there were to be punishments._

_"YA govoril, chto ty umeyesh' govorit'?"_ **_Did I say you could speak?_ ** _The man practically screamed, his spit landing on the boy's cheek. He couldn’t wipe it away though, not yet. That would come off as disrespectful and things would escalate to an extreme. Then, he’d have more than just spit to wipe off of himself. “Chto zh?”_ **_Well?_ **

_MXR-P616 didn’t answer in any way, having enough experience and scars to know that it was a trap._

_The man smirked mischievously after a moment. “Khm, umnyy. Gde ya byl do togo, kak menya tak grubo prervali?”_ **_Hmph, smart. Now, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?_ **

_Once again, he didn’t answer._

_“O da. Vashe naznacheniye,”_ **_Ah, yes. Your assignment,_ ** _the man continued, pulling out a thick file and slamming it down onto the table. “Neskol'ko mesyatsev nazad Zimniy Soldat stal predatelem i predal nas. Intel soobshchayet nam, chto on nakhoditsya pod zashchitoy Mstiteley. Vse, chto vam nuzhno znat' o nikh i yego, zdes'. Vasha missiya - nayti yego i vernut' k nam zhivym ili mertvym. Net svideteley, vy poluchili razresheniye ispol'zovat' lyubyye sredstva, neobkhodimyye dlya ustraneniya prepyatstviy.”_ **_Several months ago, the Winter Soldier turned traitorous and betrayed us. Intel informs us that he’s under the protection of the Avengers. Everything you’ll need to know about them and him are in here. Your mission is to find him and return him to us, dead or alive. No witnesses, you’re given permission to take any means necessary to remove obstacles._ **

_MXR-P616 glanced down at the file, looking for the affirmative nod before opening it._

_“U tebya yest' odin mesyats. Net svideteley. Zavtra ty uydesh', rovno chetyresta.”_ **_You have one month. No witnesses. You’ll leave tomorrow, four-hundred sharp._ **

_The soldier knew that the interaction was over now, and therefore responded this time. “YA ne podvedu, ser.”_ **_I won’t fail, sir._ **

_“Vy znayete, chto sluchitsya s vami, yesli vy eto sdelayete.”_ **_You know what happens to you if you do._ **

_“Da ser.”_ **_Yes, sir._ **

_“Uvolennyy. Idi gotov'sya.”_ **_Dismissed. Go prepare._ **

_“Da ser.”_ **_Yes, sir._ **

* * *

No witnesses. He could do that. He was trained for that.

For the first few days, the soldier staked out the Tower-- he needed to find a way in. He wished he was back at the facility so he would have a roof over his head at night, but… well, in a way, sleeping on rooftops and nabbing the unattended food was preferable. He was used to his treatment though. After all, didn’t he deserve it? That’s what he was always told, at least. That was why he had a serial number instead of a name. People had names, but he was just one of their soldiers-- a weapon.

Everyone had a role in life, this just happened to be his. 

MXR-P616 made his way to the Avenger’s Tower, sitting down on the front steps and leaning back against a pole for the railing. He pulled out a thin laptop, re-reading his coded instructions disguised as a high school student’s homework. Many students, high school and college, sat there in the afternoon with their laptops, doing whatever work they had. There was fast, secure, and free wifi from the building they were all happy to leech off of, and no one seemed to have any issue with it, security wise. Hell, in the colder months and bad weather-- or when it was unbearably hot-- the building would open their doors to these students and allow them to work inside the lobby. That wasn’t important right now though, just some trivia from the mission file in case the situation came up.

On assignments when he was alone, they through every scrap of possible information at him that they could. However, if he even had one supervisor, MXR-P616 was told nothing and strictly given orders. He liked being able to go out on his own though. From being locked up in a cell or isolation, and when not there, limited to the few corridors of the facility that he was, it was nice to see something new. Exciting, even. The boy longed for a day when he could just explore without an assignment, but he knew that that was fantasy. He was HYDRA’s, and they weren’t about to let their weapons go anywhere they liked only to be scooped up and used against them by another military and organization.

The soldier was snapped out of his train of thought by his target, and research and development scientist for Stark Industries, walking out of the building and down the steps. With a quick series of blinks and winks, the glasses locked onto the man-- an unfortunately named Patrick Fitzpatrick-- while fading everyone else out. MXR-P616 waited a few moments, sure to not seem overly eager, before casually packing up the laptop and slinging the backpack over his shoulder.

Once again, he was easily able to blend in with the crowds. It was a delicate art-- the teen needed to follow in a way where others would pay no mind to him but Fitzpatick would feel like he was being watched. That way, MXR-P616 could get him to change course and away from the pack of people. In a strange way, this was easier than the simulations he had in training, since this was this man’s genuine paranoia. It wasn’t exactly _‘fun’_ to mess with-- not that he got to do anything one may consider to be _‘fun’_ \-- but the soldier understood how to use it. 

Soon enough, Fitzpatrick began glancing back at him, more and more frequently as the minutes passed. MXR-P616 had watched his pattern for the past few days without being noticed, and hacked into nearby security cameras, and knew the path the man took on what he could only assume to be a lunch break every day. MXR-P616 was strategic in where he stood and how he walked, staying on the sides opposite of where he wanted Fitzpatrick to turn since he wouldn’t exactly walk towards the person he thought was following him, especially in New York. Sure, it was a risky plan and heavily based on predicting human emotion, and his administrator and commander could very well argue that he could’ve made a scene, but that would risk witnesses. This was the safest bet.

The teen got Fitzpatrick to turn down a practically empty side street, picking up his pace to create more anxiety in the man. Eventually, he turned around to face the soldier, putting on a tough demeanor that was easy to see through. His brows were angry and intimidating, but his hands were shaking and his knees were locked. 

“Look, I-I don’t know what you want,” he practically shouted, voice wavering a little. “But just leave me alone, man. Alright? I’ve got nothin’ for ya ‘sides a twenty. The watch isn’t worth much and I don’t have a wallet on me. Here, I’ll show you--”

Before Fitzpatrick could go to empty his pockets, with a swift movement, MXR-P616 swept his legs out and slammed his head down onto the concrete on his way down. He moved with the grace of a dancer, but the precision of an assassin. The boy didn’t have much of a concept of time, or even how old he was since it was never relevant to a mission, but he did know his training had lasted at least a few years to get him to this point. He needed to prove that he had worth, after all.

Still, he felt sick to his stomach as blood began to trickle out of the man’s head, staining the payment and etching another mark on his soul.

That feeling occured whenever a target was eliminated, and oftentimes when he would get back to the facility after a mission, MXR-P616 would find himself heaving his guts out over a toilet. It never seemed to get easier, though he it really needed to be. Feelings were a distraction, one he couldn’t afford. They were just a glitch in the system, but… fuck, he didn’t want to be reset.

The teen pulled Fitzpatrick’s security clearance card out of his breast pocket before picking his body up and shoving it into a nearby dumpster. He wasn’t worried about leaving fingerprints as the doctor burnt his off before he left for his mission. It hurt like the devil and the scars were horrific, but it was less for him to worry about. 

But, the point was that he had clearance now, a way inside the building. It wouldn’t get him up to the penthouse, MXR-P616 knew that, but it got him to the elevator. In there, he could hack their system and get himself where he needed to be. Those _‘Avengers’_ would probably put up a good fight when they found out a pest had gotten in, but he wasn’t worried. They were nothing he couldn’t handle, after all. He had an advantage too-- he knew exactly what to expect from them, their individual strengths and weaknesses, while they were in the dark. Going undetected would be nice, considering the teen was still dealing with some nausea despite being halfway back to the Tower already, but he knew better than to dream.

The key to getting in some place you aren’t supposed to be is to act like you are.

A few years ago, the soldier would’ve been incredibly paranoid and on edge right now-- jumpy and in a fighting stance whenever one person made an unexpected movement. The hairs on the back of MXR-P616’s neck were straight up, his senses picking up on anything and everything considering how high security this place was, but he had mastered the art of false-confidence. Said false-confidence got him in the front door, through the lobby and into the elevator without so much of a second glance from the people who worked there. If he didn’t need the security clearance card to actually use the elevator, MXR-P616 would have just walked in on the first day-- it was almost laughably easy. However, now that he was headed up, he had a time frame-- he needed to hack the Tower’s security system, an AI called FRIDAY, before he reached the R&D floors, as that was as far as he could get with this keycard. 

The soldier hurried to pull the laptop out, connecting to the wifi, and going from there. He used that signal to get into the building’s electronic signature and accessed the mainframe from there. The speed-typing hurt his fingertips, still sensitive from the prints being burnt off, but paid no mind to that right now. He’d been through worse, and didn’t have time to deal with that right now. MXR-P616 wasn’t as fast as the AI, she noticed him and likely alerted those in the penthouse, but he was able to shut her down not long after that, thankfully. If he were to be trapped in the damn elevator because he wasn’t efficient enough, well, he may not live to see the repercussions. HYDRA didn’t like failure or losing their toys-- it seemed their thought process was that if they couldn’t have it, no one could.

* * *

**_July 31, 2010_ **

_The back of his neck still hurt from the implant surgery, in a sort of dull ache way. He could see the bruising on the necks of the other recruits, so he assumed there was black and blue tainting his own skin. They say the chips connected with their nerves and that their bodies were recovering from that. Some of their healing, like his own, was enhanced and sped along the process faster. Some were not so lucky and not well enough yet to be up out of bed._

_HYDRA didn’t like laziness, but they also didn’t need broken weapons._

_“Eto to, chto proizoydet, yesli vy ne podchinyayetes' pryamomu prikazu,”_ **_This is what will happen if you disobey an order,_ ** _the sergeant explained, tapping the screen of her tablet briefly and sending an agonizing wave of electricity through the children standing before her. They all tensed in pain and grimmanced as the currents attacked their nerves, not stopping until one of them broke. MXR-P616 recognized the girl whose eyes watered and groaned as GWN-M842, a few cells down from his own._

_They weren’t exactly friends, none of them really were, but they trained together. She was a familiar face. And now that face was being beaten in by one of the guards as a result of breaking rank. MXR-P616 had to stop himself from looking over, as that would most likely be taken as disrespect._

_“Konechno, eto byla tol'ko myagkaya obstanovka, k kotoroy ya nadeyus', chto vse vy skoro privyknete,”_ **_Of course, that was only a mild setting, which I expect you all to get used to soon,_ ** _she explained. The woman studied the recruits before her, looking for a mistake in any of them. “Lyubyye dobrovol'tsy, chtoby prodemonstrirovat' real'noye napryazheniye?”_ **_Any volunteers to demonstrate the real voltage?_ **

_He wanted to look away from the general, but that would only certain his chances of being the unwilling volunteer. Straight ahead or at the woman’s chin-- if she were right in front of him-- were the safe places to look._

_“Net? YA dolzhen zabrat' sebya.”_ **_No? I’ll have to pick myself._ **

_There was a tense silence, one a chainsaw wouldn’t even be able to cut through. MXR-P616 hear the remaining guard walking about, waiting for the general’s signal of who to stop at. He stood at attention, but his knees were locked with anxiety. Eventually, the woman spoke up, “Von tot.”_ **_That one._ **

_The boy felt his heart fall through the floor as a hand grabbed his shoulder, dragging him then out of line and to the front of the room. He could’ve sworn he saw a few pitied looks, and although he had been told several times before that he wasn’t human, his body reacted to fear like one. His breaths were short and he felt light headed._

_“Ne proydite otsenku obucheniya, vyydite za ramki ili neuvazhitel'no otnosites' k vashim komandiram ili administratoram trebuyet nakazaniya gorazdo boleye surovogo, chem to, chto vy tol'ko chto ispytali. Vot chto proiskhodit, kogda vy ne mozhete dokazat' svoyu tsennost' dlya nas.”_ **_Fail a training assessment, fall out of line, or disrespect your commanding officers or administrators calls for a punishment far more severe than what you just experienced. This is what happens when you fail to prove your worth to us._ **

_MXR-P616 went a pain like never before attack every inch of his body, and although he tried to remain composed, it didn’t last long. The child’s knees buckled beneath him and he fell to the ground, writhing and screaming in pain. It felt like an eternity, and in their wake, the electric currents left lightning like scars from his neck and down his back. He knew his visible pain would result in another punishment later on until he could go through pain with no reaction, but he couldn’t fight back the screams. They ripped themselves from his throat and his body spazzed on its own accord._

_“Vy vse sdelayete khorosho, chtoby ubedit'sya, chto my ne podayem primer na samom vysokom urovne.”_ **_You will all do well to assure we don’t make an example on the highest setting._ **

* * *

MXR-P616 shivered at the memory. The teen yanked the hoodie off now, stuffing both it and the laptop into the backpack. After that, he grabbed his mask and pulled it on over his head. Now, it was time for the real work. 

The soldier stepped out of the elevator a moment after the doors open, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck and arms stand straight up underneath his suit. They’re near, he thought. Waiting. He couldn’t pinpoint where, exactly, but because nothing was happening yet. That tingle-like sixth sense would kick into fifth-gear when the action did.

And then it did. 

First, it was on his left-- a shield flying right towards him. With his web shooters, MXR-P616 was able to catch it, spin himself in a one-eighty, and throw it back and who his file said was a Captain Steve “America” Rogers. All hell broke loose after this, and in a second, he was up on the ceiling assessing the situation. There were four of them-- the captain, the assassins, and the billionaire. His target, the Winter Soldier, was nowhere to be found. That… wasn’t according to plan.

As far as their files went, the Soldier should be in complete physical health. They knew he was in the Tower, and he was a very capable weapon of destruction. If any of them could best him, it would be him-- he had been a demonstration in his early training days several times. Why wouldn’t these Avengers use that advantage? 

“Barton, six o’clock!”

“I’m trying, I’m trying! They’re moving too fucking fast and unpredictable!”

MXR-P616 practically flew around them, aiming to incapacitate the assassins first. The captain was just a shield and some brawn, and Stark was untrained. They didn’t pose as much of a threat, in his mind. 

The young soldier was able to catch his webbing on the ankle of Hawkeye, yanking his legs out from underneath him. An arrow barely grazed his soldier, but while a mere scratch was lucky, the fact he was hit wasn’t a good sign. He was being sloppy. 

Webbing on both the man’s hands would be enough to keep Hawkeye on the ground, MXR-P616 evaluated, so Romanoff was next on his hit list. Terminate any obstacles, those were his orders. However, this obstacle proved to be a challenge. It was hand to hand combat at first, and while his training was intense, so was her’s, and she had greater experience. The element of surprise was hopefully on his side, as the Spider relied on that when he pulled himself up with a ceiling web mid-dodge and swung his feet into her gut. It didn’t feel like it’d be enough to get her out of the party, but then a tall blond man was throwing punches his way and pulled his mind away from Romanoff’s ability to take a hit.

The captain, he felt, was easier to take out. His legs were completely exposed-- with a shield the size of a dinner plate, how could he expect people not to aim for his lower half?-- so of course, that was where the Spider aimed his webs. Unlike with Hawkeye, MXR-P616 didn’t yank him onto the ground. No, instead, he brought himself up to the ceiling with him, letting Spangle dangle there like a fly caught in a spider’s web. The teen hung attached to his own web, grabbing the captain’s face and leaning in. “Where are you hiding him?” he practically hissed, an accent like a hybrid of New York and Russian. A strange mashup, but all the other recruits had had odd accent mixes.

“You’re gonna want to swing out of the way, Capsicle.” A blaster charging came after the voice.

Fuck.

He forgot about Stark.

Idiot! Idiot, idiot, _idiot, idiot!_

MXR-P616 barely dodged the repulsor’s blast, Rogers using his weight to swing himself out of the way. As he flipped back, the boy caught him of Iron Man’s back. He kicked off him, but brought Stark down with him. The man slammed face first into the ground while the Spider landed perfectly on his feet, grabbing one of his arms and flipping him over. MXR-P616 ripped the faceplate off, straddling his chest to keep him from getting off. With a few touches to the base of his web shooter on his right hand, said shooter turned into a different kind of shooter-- a small handgun, to be exact. 

With the eyes of his mask lifted up, the soldier stared at Stark’s face. His stomach churned at the idea of more blood on his hands, a flaw in his programming that’d inevitably lead to his downfall. MXR-P616 was about to opt for questioning Stark instead until he felt something tear through the fabric of his mask on the back of his neck, something landing at the nape and an electric current pulsing through his body. The gun fell and his eyes widened in terror, thinking that this was HYDRA was terminating him for hesitating, as he fell off the Iron Man suit, spazzing on the floor as everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy, y'all :)
> 
> I don't know if the following chapters are going to be as long as this one, though it'd be nice. I have the whole fic planned now, including an epilogue, and yes, it's staying at 15 chapters. There's going to be a happy ending too! And who knows? Maybe a sequel? I don't know. I only know that with weekly updates, this fic should last into April, which I think is exciting. Anyways, hope y'all enjoyed!
> 
> Also, Peter's suit basically looks like the Night Monkey suit. Real original, I know.
> 
> \--Samuel


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MXR-P616 didn’t expect to be waking up to begin with, sure that he had been terminated for his mistake in hesitating. He could’ve used the death of Stark to his advantage, to get the Winter Soldier, but… he couldn’t, okay? He had trained and trained and trained, but he still had difficulty when it came to taking someone’s life. It was his whole purpose, but the teen still went through such a horrific inner turmoil when he had to. 
> 
> No matter what he did, no matter how much blood was forced to drench his hands, something inside him screamed terribly whenever he had to kill someone. It screamed that it was wrong and that he should run fast and run far and never ever look back, but he never did. He couldn’t. They’d just find him and probably kill him anyways, so what was the point?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TW for nightmares, PTSD**  
>    
> This chapter is mostly gonna be like a peek into Peter's head, which I know has been the thing for the last three chapters, but I really want y'all to be in his headspace so you can have a feel for the weird, complex emotions that he'll be going through trying to regain his humanity. In either chapters five or six, we'll see things from Tony's view, promise.  
> And yes, there will be soft Iron Dad in this fic. Not in this fucking chapter, but eventually. And you know what? It'll be cute but still angsty. We gotta get there first folks.

**_April 16, 2005_ **

_ “Lemme go!” Peter shrieked, flailing about in the cruel man’s arms despite the agony it caused him. He didn’t know where he was or who these people were, he just wanted his mom and dad. They would save him, right? They had to, they always did. Like that time he got stuck under the sink playing hide-n-seek or when he was getting pushed down by some older kids at the park-- they always saved him.  _

_ “Shut it, kid,” the man holding him tucked under his arm spat, wacking him in the back of the head. It caused the boy to try out and whimper, not a part of his body not aching terribly from the plane crash. He wasn’t sure where he was being taken to from there, but he did know that while they were outside, he saw the sun starting to come up even though it had been dark outside when they first kidnapped him. This was why he was told not to talk to strangers, wasn’t it? _

_ They were inside an old looking building in the middle of nowhere now, the landscape barren and giving Peter no hints as to where he was. It was cold, really cold, but that was all he knew. That terrified him more than anything. He had been told that if someone ever tried to take him away, to scream as loud as he could and try to run to the nearest house. Tell whoever was there that the man or woman wasn’t someone he knew. Well, the little boy hadn’t stopped fighting once, and there was nowhere he could run to. No one to save him. _

_ The inside of the building was weird-- it was old and new at the same time. The paint of the walls were peeling right off, but there was metal scattered about that looked shiny and new to his young eyes and an intense security system. Inside the building, there were more scary men with guns, and they didn’t even bat an eye at him no matter how loud he screamed. _

_ No one to save him. _

_ Peter was dropped harshly onto the floor, the man tired of his squirming, which caused the boy to cry out in pain. It hurt, and it hurt as he was dragged by his wrist down a long hallway. It sort of looked like the inside of a jail, with many…. What were they called? Oh, right, cells. They were different though, not with the big metal bars like in cartoons. They were hard walls that looked like sidewalk, but you could see right through the clear door. There were cells on both sides of the hallway, and Peter couldn’t help but wonder what he did wrong. Why were they doing this? He couldn’t understand. _

_ “I-I-I want my mommy and daddy!” Peter cried, blood mixing with his tears as he was practically shoved into one of the cells at the end of the block. It caused him to fall to the ground and scrape his knees on the rough floor-- just another of his many injuries. _

_ “Your mother and father are dead. Stay quiet until the doctor comes to see you unless you want to die too, svoloch’.”  _ **_Scum._ ** _ The man practically spat at him when he spoke, unphased by the child’s widened eyes of terror, and slammed the cell door behind him when he left. _

_ Peter just curled up on the floor where he layed, hugging himself and crying hysterically. Even if someone did bother to try and comfort him, the boy was inconsolable. It seemed impossible that his mommy and daddy were gone, that he would never see him again. They were supposed to save him! They had to! He was too little to save himself, and he didn’t want to be trapped with these mean people forever. _

_ He just wanted to go home, get Piggy, and climb into bed with his parents until everything was all better and this was all just a bad dream _

  
  


* * *

**November 19, 2016**

He woke up with a start, as a result of his nightmare, but the teen learned the hard way that he needed to stay perfectly still.

MXR-P616 didn’t expect to be waking up to begin with, sure that he had been terminated for his mistake in hesitating. He could’ve used the death of Stark to his advantage, to get the Winter Soldier, but… he couldn’t, okay? He had trained and trained and trained, but he still had difficulty when it came to taking someone’s life. It was his whole purpose, but the teen still went through such a horrific inner turmoil when he had to. 

No matter what he did, no matter how much blood was forced to drench his hands, something inside him screamed terribly whenever he had to kill someone. It screamed that it was wrong and that he should run fast and run far and never  _ ever _ look back, but he never did. He couldn’t. They’d just find him and probably kill him anyways, so what was the point?

Although, the soldier supposed he’d be killed now anyways, probably made an example of. It was a terrifying thought, a chilling one like being dumped in the artic sea, but… he did bring this on himself. He failed, he was worthless. He deserved to be shut down. It was the circle of life, even if he didn’t live much of an actual life. Or, well, what those people in the streets would be considered a life. He lived his to his full potential, but it wasn’t enough.

Trying to accept his impending demise, MXR-P616 cracked an eye open. 

This wasn’t the facility. HYDRA hadn’t retrieved him.

He’d been captured.

Oh, he was dead for sure. 

At first, MXR-P616 had trouble placing where he may be and how, but then it hit him-- Romanoff! He knew that wouldn’t have been enough to get her out of the game, he should’ve made sure! The woman must’ve done something, since the soldier now knew the pain he had felt on his neck wasn’t his chip, to him. And now, he was the Avenger’s prisoner. Wonderful. 

For now, the teen was trying to assess what information was available to him in order to get the hell out of here. If he were lucky, once he escaped, he may be able to find the Winter Soldier and bring him back to base. And if not, well, he did have a month to concock something to save his life. 

MXR-P616 was only moving his eyes around what he could only assume to be an interrogation room, and it sure seemed like they were taking their precautions now-- there were shackles on his wrists and ankles, attaching him to the chair. They were most likely made of vibranium, since his advance strength couldn’t even make a bend in them. The room only had only three things in it, not including himself and the chair. There was a door, obviously, a table in front of him, and a mirror on the wall to his right that was likely one-way mirror glass. If they were smart, the glass would be reinforced as well, meaning breaking through it likely wouldn’t be his best option. Then again, if these Avengers were smart, the door would be vibranium as well. Unless his escape could be when it was open, then the glass was the best option. There was also definitely several sensors in the room linking to the AI, which may complicate things, but as soon as he got to a computer, he could shut her down. Obviously, it’d take a different code, as ‘FRIDAY’ likely fixed that bug in her system already, but MXR-P616 was confident he could find another mistake.

The soldier sat there, almost perfectly still, for hours on end as he brainstormed his escape. His first step would be to break out of the chair-- only the restraints were vibranium, not the entire thing-- but he couldn’t rely on to hope that someone would let him out, even if for the bathroom. No, if he could manage to pull the vibranium from the rest of the chair, then he’d have an ideal situation. He could use the table as a shield or to push through people, and if he could find anything with even a thin, dull edge to it, MXR-P616 was sure he could pry off whatever device was stuck to his nape. 

Timing was going to be key-- he was, somehow, going to need to learn the routine from this side of the glass. Of course, the teen had none of his equipment on him-- they even changed him out of his suit into a loose fitting white shirt and equally baggy sweatpants-- which would prove this to be even more challenging, but he had to prove his worth. All he really needed was himself to get out of here though, so it's not like the lack of equipment made the task impossible. He just needed to be more careful, vigilante, and not hesitate anymore.

The hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood straight, and immediately, MXR-P616's eyes darted to the door. Not a second later did he hear someone fiddling with the locks and opening it on up. That someone turned out to be Romanoff, and MXR-P616 supposed she was here to question him-- find out what he knew, his objective, where his base was, et cetera. 

“‘Morning,” Natasha greeted him, making sure the door shut tight behind her, and walked across the room to him. The woman walked over to the table and sat down on the chair opposite of him.

MXR-P616 didn’t respond in anyway, though he felt uncomfortable as she seemed to study him.

“So, is there something I should call you?” she prompted, her eyes darting all about him to try and read his body language. “We’ve heard rumors of a new HYDRA super soldier with the alias of ‘ the Spider’, and I can see why. It was hard to determine if you were real or not. I’d say it’s safe to assume they don’t let you out much, do they?”

Silence from the teen.

“Ty ponimayesh' po angliyski?”  _ Do you understand english?  _ Natasha asked.

Despite him not acknowledging what she was saying whatsoever, there had been an understanding in his eyes. So, she took that particular blink as a yes. Rogers said he spoke English to him before as well.

“It’s obvious HYDRA sent you, but the question is ‘why’?” the woman began casually. “Rogers said that you demanded Barnes’s location from him. It makes sense that they’d want him back, but what I can’t figure out is why they sent a lone child to do the job.”

The preexisting frown on his face deepened at being called a child, his brows lowering slightly. MXR-P616 wasn’t a child, he knew that. Children were coddled and weak, and he was the opposite. He was a weapon, a soldier. He couldn’t afford to be weak, and he sure as hell was never coddled. 

Natasha smirked a little, but it wasn’t an amused one. Well, there was a slight bit of amusement, but there was also pity. “We may not know your exact age, but from your facial features alone, we can determine that you’re easily under eighteen. In the younger teenager range. How did HYDRA get a hold of someone as young as you, hm?” she leaned forward a bit. “How long have you been with them?”

* * *

_ “Peter Benjamin Parker,” the doctor-- Doctor Mikhailova-- reviewed, her accent thick like the men with guns. Those men had pulled him out of his cell to her office, and she had given him a check up. She wasn’t being mean to him, but one of the people who were being mean was practically towering over him to make sure he didn’t misbehave. Doctor Mikhailova also wasn’t being nice, but not nice and not mean was better that not nice and mean in Peter’s mind. “Birthday is August 10th, 2005. Age is three years, eight months, and six days old. Ninety-one centimeters tall and five-point-three kilograms. Detriments are a reliance on prescription glasses and asthma.” She seemed to check boxes off on her clipboard as she reviewed. _

_ “Eto vse, chto vam nuzhno?”  _ **_Is that all you need it for?_ **

_ Peter looked up at the man was a confused look as he didn’t understand the language, but fearfully looked back down when he practically snarled at him. He was swinging his legs-- one casted now, as the doctor fixed him up from his crash injuries-- but was whacked upside the head.  _

_ “Prekrati eto,”  _ **_Stop,_ ** _ he growled, and Pete whimpered but ended up staying quiet and still. _

_ “I’m going to need a vial of blood from and then you can get it branded.” _

* * *

MXR-P616 had to stop himself from trying to shake the memories out of his head-- he wasn’t supposed to have those. They were supposed to be purged from his mind-- he wasn’t  _ Peter _ , he was MXR-P616. That child died a long time ago, and he wasn’t him anymore. Did the soldier sometimes wish he could back to that? Yes, but he needed to punish himself for it, less one of his administrators find out.

So, he simply gave a curt head shake ‘no’, and as tough as he tried acting, Natasha could see the disturbed look on his face. She felt bad for the kid-- he was like Barnes, but a child. 

“How about I leave you be for a while?” She stood up, heading for the door. “Someone will bring you breakfast in a half an hour.”

The soldier stayed quiet, watching Romanoff walked out. Of course, he had expected her to ask questions, but not those ones. They caught him off guard in one of the worst ways. Just like before, the teen was silent and unmoving. The only thing he did was bite down on his lip to the point it began bleeding, trying to make up for thinking back to those memories. 

MXR-P616 could only assume it was thirty minutes later, as Romanoff said it’d be, when he smelt food from the other side of the door. His stomach growled as if on instinct, and there was nothing he could do to suppress that. For the past few days, all he’s had were other people’s scraps of food he didn’t even know the name of. Not that the teen knew it, but he was very malnourished-- you could practically see his ribs. 

Much to his surprise, it was Stark who came in with a plate of food he also didn’t know the name of and an odd orange drink in hand. Just like Romanoff before him, he came to sit down at the seat in front of the kid, setting the breakfast on the table and pushing it closer to him. “Alright kid, here’s the deal,” Stark began. “I’m going to uncuff you, but only while you eat. We’ve security and Miss Romanoff behind that glass if you try lashing out at me or try to escape. Trust me, it won’t go well for you. Nat’s not afraid to taze you again, even if you are just a kid.”

MXR-P616 watched Stark as he stood back up and walked over to his side of the table. The teen tensed as he released the vibranium from around his wrists and frowned as he saw the blood on his face. The soldier half expected him to hit him for it, but instead, Stark only pushed a napkin his way and said, “Here, your lip’s bleeding. I don’t think bloody waffles are going to taste too good.”

He hesitated, but did bring the napkin to his mouth and wipe away the red. Stark seemed pleased by it, but there was a mix of concern and confusion when the kid in front of him simply stared at the food and drink. “Is there a problem, spider-kid?: Did we somehow pick the two things you don’t like?”

MXR-P616 looked back up at Tony, actively avoiding eye contact, with a confused expression. Back at the facility, he was old ever given cold bread and water. This drink was orange, and on the plate was warm and sure as hell not bread. “Not hungry.” he decided to say, voice quiet and hoarse from minimal use most of his life, instead of explaining that he didn’t know what this weird food was. Perhaps it was an American thing? Either way, the soldier’s stomach betrayed him and growled loudly, desperate for food.

“Bullshit,” Stark was blunt. “I can hear your stomach, you need food in you.” The teenager still looked confused by the food. “Is the problem that you’ve never had this before?”

He nodded.

Stark looked surprised, and even a little sad. “Damn kid hasn’t even had typical breakfast…” he muttered as though MXR-P616 couldn’t hear him. “Alright, so what do you usually have?”

“Bread. Water.” 

“And?”

Silence.

“You’ve never eaten anything else?”

He shook his head, and Tony sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “Alright, alright that’s not your fault. Just… why don’t you try a bite? If it’s not good, we can get you some bread and water.”

MXR-P616 hesitated again, but eventually picked the ‘waffle’ up off the plate whilst ignoring the silverware. How was he supposed to know he was supposed to use them? The look on Tony’s face gave him an idea that he was, somehow, doing something wrong, but ignored that as he sniffed the food. It… it smelled amazing, but he had to be cautious.

His senses didn’t scream at him when he took the first, small bite, so MXR-P616 assumed that meant it was safe. And, as a bonus, it tasted fantastic! The teen practically scarfed it down, hesitating with the drink at first but chugging it when he knew it was safe, too.

Tony couldn’t help but smile when the kid demolished the food-- it was a good sign. It meant he didn’t think they were going to poison him and there was still a part of him that HYDRA didn’t totally destroy. The look in this ‘Spider’s’ eyes was, well, nothing short of child-like wonder as flavored exploded in his mouth. “So, did you like it?”

Once again, he looked confused.

“You know…” Tony sighed. “Did it taste good?”

MXR-P616 seemed to understand that as he nodded in agreement. 

“Good,” Stark smiled slightly. “I’ll have to make sure I find something else you like for lunch later. Now, I got to get you locked up again. Security reasons, and you did attack us before.”

Tony got up and after the teen put his wrist back down on the arms of the chair, secured the vibranium restraints. The man picked the plate and such up and went to walk on out with a brief goodbye’, but this time, he was the hesitator. He turned around to face him. “You hesitated earlier today in the fight. Why?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whenever I finish a chapter early, I have to hold myself back from posting it immediately because I want to actually stick to my schedule with this fic. Anyways, hope y'all are enjoying this! It's been pretty fun to write :)
> 
> \--Samuel


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And they don’t even refer to him by his name, do they?” Tony sighed. “Winter Soldier?”
> 
> Now there was the understanding, and Tony took that look as confirmation.
> 
> “Now, I may not be his biggest fan, to say the least, but I’ve seen what Hydra can do people. If they can manipulate a child into doing all of this shit, and going off of what I’ve seen before, we’re not about to just let you nab him.”
> 
> “Not a child, a soldier,” MXR-P616 snapped, and the pitying look on Stark’s face just enraged him. Why did he keep looking at him like that? He didn’t need anyone’s pity, he needed to escape.
> 
> “Whether you like it or not, you’re a kid,” Tony spoke calmly. “Whatever you’ve done in the past doesn’t matter, because that’s not your fault. Hydra’s forcing you to do this shit, and I’d say part of you knows it’s wrong. Why else wouldn’t you have shot me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Tony time, folks :D  
> This chapter is gonna be pretty short, but it's setting up stuff for later. It's sort of a filler, I guess, but only this and chapter 7 should be fillers. The rest should be plot-driven, while this is just dialouge driven. Anyways, enjoy!

**November 19, 2016**

“You hesitated earlier today in the fight. Why?”

MXR-P616 looked confused by the question, and the slightest of head tilts was like his way of asking Tony what he meant.

Stark leaned against the door, studying the kid sitting there with the dishes at his side. “I want to know what was going through that mysterious head of yours when you decided not to shoot me,” he shrugged. “You had the perfect chance to. Not that I’m not happy to be bullet-less, but I’d think if I were you, I’d want to get out as many threats I could.”

The soldier’s expression hardened, desperate to not show weakness. “Not apart of my mission.”

“Which is?”

“Classified.”

“Rogers told me you asked where he was hiding someone,” Tony began casually, though this entire time, there were hints of sadness in his expression. “And it wasn’t hard to determine that you were Hydra. So, who would Hydra want that the Avengers, or Cap specifically, might be hiding?”

MXR-P616 stayed silent. He wasn’t supposed to discuss his mission with anyone, but it wasn’t really his fault if someone figured it out. Well, of course his administrator wouldn’t see it that way, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that right now. 

“Not the talkative type, huh?” Tony raised a brow before shrugging. “Well, I’d say it’s safe to say your mission was involving Barnes.”

Once more, there was the confused look.

“And they don’t even refer to him by his name, do they?” Tony sighed. “Winter Soldier?”

Now there was the understanding, and Tony took that look as confirmation.

“Now, I may not be his biggest fan, to say the least, but I’ve seen what Hydra can do people. If they can manipulate a child into doing all of this shit, and going off of what I’ve seen before, we’re not about to just let you nab him.”

“Not a child, a soldier,” MXR-P616 snapped, and the pitying look on Stark’s face just enraged him. Why did he keep looking at him like that? He didn’t need anyone’s pity, he needed to escape.

“Whether you like it or not, you’re a kid,” Tony spoke calmly. “Whatever you’ve done in the past doesn’t matter, because that’s not your fault. Hydra’s forcing you to do this shit, and I’d say part of you knows it’s wrong. Why else wouldn’t you have shot me?”

The boy was so tense that it looked like it hurt. He couldn’t figure out how this stranger was able to see right through him, to know the things he had locked up and kept deep down for his safety. What the hell was happening here? He needed to get out.

“I want to help you, kid,” Stark continued seriously. “Hydra can’t touch you here. But, you’re going to have to do some talking if we’re really going to help. Alright?”

MXR-P616 clenched his fists. “Don’t need help…”

“Yeah, kiddo. You do,” Tony got off the wall, opening up the door. “I’ll be back to give you lunch. Need anything, just shout and someone will be here. You’re a person, and we’re going to treat you like one.”

That being said, the man walked on out, leaving the teen stunned. 

_ You’re a person, and we’re going to treat you like one. _ Stark said.

Since when was he a person? MXR-P616 was a weapon, and he knew that. What sort of game were these people playing at? They saw right through him-- both his mission and his deepest secrets-- and yet they were talking to him like this? These Avengers almost definitely planned to use him and his abilities, the boy thought, so why were they dancing around it so much? 

The teen couldn’t understand. 

* * *

  
  


Tony sighed heavily as the door shut and locked behind him. He set the plate and glass down on a nearby table, plopping down on a chair behind said table. 

Natasha came and sat down beside him, the both of them looking through the glass at the kid. He was silent and still, but they could see the gears turning in his head. “So…” she eventually spoke up.

“That was harder than expected,” Tony sounded exhausted.

“He didn’t lash out, at least.”

“Yeah, but he’s a  _ kid _ . He should be lashing out-- he shouldn’t be afraid to which he clearly is,” he vented. “What does he think we’ll do that they haven’t already done?”

“Tony--”

“We have to do  _ something _ , but Jesus fucking Christ, where do we even start with the mess that is how ever many damn years of Hydra torture?”

“Tony, you need to calm down.”   
  


“How the hell am I supposed to be calm right now?” Stark yelled, standing up now. “That’s a child! A child that probably has a family somewhere out there with no idea that their son was forced into becoming an assassin, if he wasn’t born into that bullshit. There’s so much fucked up about this, I don’t think I could name them all without being sick. I mean, he doesn’t even realize he’s a kid! How do you fix that?”

“You can’t just ‘fix’ him,” Natasha spoke carefully-- the whole situation pissed her off just as much, but with one of them already panicking and freaking out, she needed to stay calm. For now. Hydra was going to pay for fucking up this child and how ever many others as much as they did, and she was going to have a hand in the entire endevour. “He’s like Barnes, but younger. It’s bad, but he can be saved. We’ve seen it before, haven’t we?”

“Yeah…” Tony nodded, sitting back down. “But Barnes had memories to fall back on. We don’t know how long Hydra’s had this kid, if there’s anything to fall back on. What if this is all he’s ever been?”

“Then we help the kid make a new life without this shit,” Natasha said simply. “We talk to Rogers and Barnes about recovering from Hydra’s manipulation and go from there.”

“We’re going to need to know more about what’s happened to really get the kid through this. And if there are any others.”

“One of us is going to have to get him to trust them,” Nat pointed out.

“I’m guessing you have someone in mind?” Tony raised a brow. “I mean, if we want the kid to act like a regular kid, Barton would be a great choice.”

“Well, I was thinking you.”

“I’m not good with kids, Nat.” Tony frowned.

“And he’s not good at being a kid. Look, you’re already pretty damn invested in the kid, so why not try and help? And I think you helping the kid would be good.”

“And why’s that?”

“For starters, you’re already losing your shit over him. And, if you’re going to be his delivery boy, why not?” Natasha explained. “It’d be some consistency for him too.”

Tony thought about it for a moment. He did want to make sure this kid got better, and if it were him, he’d know no one was manipulating him anymore… he could always tap out if he fucked it up. Might as well. “Alright. Rogers is next in line, since he’s helped someone with this before.” Tony stood up now, stretching a little bit. “I’m going to go get a real room set up for him. Or, at least one with a bed and a bathroom until one of the guest rooms can be secured for him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so having things planned out before has really fucking helped. Like, I finished writing chapter 3 the day chapter 2 was updated and started working on this one the day after. And don't worry, Pete should be going by 'Pete' again soon-- maybe in the next chapter or chapter 6. Tony ain't having anyone treating this kid like just a machine anymore. He's one Nick Fury call away from adopting to protect this child but would defend that as "nah,,,,, just so shield doesn't get him"


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But one's just a child,_ part of Tony said. _Children and adults are always held to different standards._
> 
> But sometimes they needed to be held to the same. It was a screwed up situation in every sense of the word, but logically, Tony knew that the kid in the cell was just as responsible for what Hydra made him do as Bucky was. Whether he liked it or not,
> 
> _Barnes did so much worse than break into some place though. He’s a murderer. ___
> 
> _  
> _He couldn’t know what the kid has done though. He was about to kill him, there was a gun held to his head-- chances were, there was some blood on his hands too. Tony, with some digging, could probably find someone who felt the same as he did about Barnes with this kid.__  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We get to see things through Tony's eyes for a little more :) And the back to Peter, because I want y'all to understand the world through his eyes too and hurt like he hurts. I'm cruel, I know

**November 20, 2016**

Tony kept himself fairly busy the rest of that day with his breaks being when he needed to bring the kid something to eat and when someone else forced him to eat. The kid wasn't very talkative, and while he couldn't place if it was his normal to be silent or if it was because he thought himself their prisoner, Tony didn't push him. He made the kid talk enough for one day, he thought, and if he wanted or needed to say anything, the offer was there.

It was hard for him not to be running around right now-- he still saw that look in the kid's eyes when he was about to shoot him and the change when Natasha shocked him. It was a realization sort of one mixed with terror, and it made Tony's stomach churn when he tried to think of what Hydra might've done to him to give him that reaction. Part of him wanted to know, if only to know what was going on in the kid’s head and hopefully help counter whatever Hydra programmed into him, but the other part of Tony was scared to find out.

The kid had to live with whatever memories he had for the rest of his life, so Tony could suck it up to hear about them if it helped.

Along with all the trains of thought running rampant in Tony’s mind about how to help the kid, there was one in the back of his head that deviated from the topic the rest seemed to follow. He told that kid that whatever Hydra made him do wasn’t his fault, and while he firmly believed that, Tony realized that that applied for Barnes too. It was the same situation, really, and he couldn’t reasonably hold them to different standards.

_But one’s just a child_ , part of Tony said. _Children and adults are always held to different standards._

But sometimes they needed to be held to the same. It was a screwed up situation in every sense of the word, but logically, Tony knew that the kid in the cell was just as responsible for what Hydra made him do as Bucky was. Whether he liked it or not,

_Barnes did so much worse than break into some place though. He’s a murderer._

He couldn’t know what the kid has done though. He was about to kill him, there was a gun held to his head-- chances were, there was some blood on his hands too. Tony, with some digging, could probably find someone who felt the same as he did about Barnes with this kid. 

_It’s different. You know it’s a different situation._

Was it? The only differences were age and how long Hydra used them. 

Thinking about how he could help this kid recover from Hydra, what he was saying to him, made Tony realize how much he might’ve hindered Barnes in his own recovery. Sure, he let him stay in the Tower and at the Compound, but honestly? That was mostly just to try and ease Steve’s mind. Tony knew he wouldn’t have come back without Barnes, so he made the sacrifice. He had felt lucky that Barnes had seemed to prefer isolating himself in his room, but Tony was imagining doing the same to the kid, and it felt deeply wrong.

He had been an asshole, hadn’t he?

Tony didn’t want to have to be apologetic and guilty for how he felt-- what he felt was _real_. He was angry about what happened to his parents, what happened to his mother, and that was valid. No one could tell him that it wasn’t. But, the emotional part of Tony needed to accept that it wasn’t Bucky’s fault, but instead Hydra’s and whoever ordered the Winter Soldier to do that.

It was going to take some time, but when he had time, he’d work on that. And honestly, he could even use some of Bucky’s help with this kid considering he was the only one here who might have a real understanding of what was going on in his head. He knew what recovering from Hydra was like and could probably help him out. Steve knew what it was like to help someone through this too... he was probably the wrong person doing this.

For now though, Tony wanted to get the kid out of that cell. Damn, he was really going to need to find out what to call the kid instead of just 'the kid'. When he was unconscious, Tony saw a letter-number combination on the back of his neck under the device Nat attached to hit that seemed to be burned into the skin. There were jagged, almost lightning or some sort of electric educed scars around the area that were sickening too, but that branded shit?... Tony didn't have words. All he knew was that he wasn't going to call the kid a _number_.

Speaking of the kid, Tony supposed it was time to go check on him. He had a second cell ready, one with a bed and bathroom, for now until they finished securing the guest room. It was a little more comfortable, and Tony would have tried to get him in there for the night if it weren't for the security protocols. This kid managed to hack FRIDAY-- they needed to look into that and keep him under heavy surveillance for the time being. That wasn't to say that there wouldn't be surveillance wherever he was put, but the cell the kid was in right now was more secure. They needed to help the kid, but they couldn’t be reckless about it since they couldn’t exactly predict what he’d do.

* * *

  
  


MXR-P616 didn’t get much sleep last night. To be fair though, he never slept much to begin with-- only a few hours a night every night. Something would just always end up waking him up, whether it be his own subconscious tormenting him or one of the guards dragging him by the ankle out of his cell for god knows what. Sleep, in MXR-P616’s mind, was unsafe and left him vulnerable, so he tried the best he could to always stay awake. After all, he would always end up getting hurt, since the guards usually would drag him to some inhumane experiment and waking up screaming got him punished.

So, awake he stayed. At one point in the early hours of the morning, the soldier’s eyes got too heavy and he fell asleep for a few hours, but that was it. Only a few hours later did the boy wake, but thankfully, not as a result of his subconscious. He actually heard nearby shuffling and moving around from the opposite side of the wall, and originally, MXR-P616 thought it to be guards before he recalled where he was. The boy may be their prisoner, but from what he had gathered here so far, it didn’t seem like Stark or any others here were too interested in experimenting on him. Hopefully. The teen didn’t know how he’d get out of that in one piece if they did. 

But, fortunately for MXR-P616, it was just Tony with breakfast. It was the same, strange ‘waffles’ as yesterday, and his stomach audibly growled almost immediately. “‘Morning, kiddo,” Stark greeted him, and just as before, set the food down in front of him, unlocked his hands and sat in the other chair. “You know, if you’re ever hungry before I bring in your food, you could always just say something and someone get you a snack.”

“Snack?” MXR-P616 asked with a little head tilt before beginning to stuff the food in his face. 

“Yeah, snacks. It’s food you eat in between actual meals if you’re hungry,” Tony explained. It was kind of heartbreaking to have to explain to the kid such simple things, but that wasn’t his fault. “I’m guessing they never gave you those back with Hydra. Right?”

MXR-P616 nodded, practically inhaling his breakfast. Tony had three waffles on the plate, and the teen was tearing through them like they were nothing. 

“Did they at least give you three meals a day?”

A head shake this time. What should he have expected though?

“How many?”

The soldier held up a ‘one’. 

“ _One_?” Tony was exasperated. “Jesus, kid. How are you even alive?”

“Nutritional supplementing pills and injections,” MXR-P616 explained as though that were normal. 

Tony sighed. It was going to be a lot of work to get the Hydra programming out of this kid. “Well, there’s not going to be any of that here, alright? You’re getting your nutrition by just eating like everyone else. We need to get some meat on your bones.”

“My bones already have meat?” 

“Not enough. You’re too thin, but we can fix that.”

The boy went quiet after that… conflicted. On one hand, having more food instead of the supplements sounded wonderful, but on the other hand, MXR-P616 didn’t believe he deserved it. He had what he deserved before and didn’t need anything else. 

Once again, Tony had to be the one to break the silence between them as the kid finished up his food. “So kid, I was thinking about transferring you out of here. How’s that sound?”

There was an almost disappointed look on MXR-P616’s face. In his mind, it wasn’t transferring rooms, but instead organizations in general. Military, Shield, he didn’t know. All the boy did know was that there was bound to be some reconditioning that he was not looking forward to. “Who?”

“Excuse me?” Tony raised a brow. 

“The transfer. To who?”

“Oh. Oh no, kiddo,” Tony shook his head. He really thought they’d just send him off like that? So casually? “I meant transferring you out of this cell. We’re still working on what’s going to actually be your room, but we have a temporary one right now. You’re still going to have to stay in there for the time being, but you won’t be restrained to a chair anymore. It doesn’t look to comfortable.”

“Oh.” MXR-P616 didn’t say much else, but he did look a little relieved. 

“If you’re done with your breakfast, we can move you over there now?” Tony offered. “We’ll have to have you cuffed on the way over and probably someone, I’m thinking Steve, hold onto you on the way over. Security reasons, you know? It was only a few days ago when you attacked us after all, so we can’t trust you to roam freely yet. Doesn’t mean you can’t get there one day, just not today. Alright?”

MXR-P616 hesitated, but nodded anyways. It made sense that he’d need a guard, and Rogers being a super soldier, he was a smart option. The teen thought he could still manage to beat him in combat, but perhaps not when he was handcuffed. MXR-P616 didn’t yet have a perfectly finalized escape plan either, but getting out of this cell could definitely help him with that. 

“Great,” Tony grinned, standing up and taking the kid’s dishes. Not before, of course, recuffing him. “I’ll be back in about five minutes. Sit tight.”

_It’s not like I can go anywhere anyways,_ MXR-P616 thought. 

No more than five minutes later, Tony returned followed by an uncertain looking Steve Rogers. The kid seemed a little wary with several people in here with him, but it was only tension in his muscles that gave that away. “You sure about this?” The latter had whispered as if the teen couldn’t hear him. 

“Look Cap, we can talk more later. Okay? Now's not the time,” Tony tried not to snap. He took a deep breath and turned back to the teen. “Alright kid, Capsical here is going to help us out. We’re going to get you out of the chair and into the vibranium handcuffs.”

MXR-P616 didn’t say anything, but Tony took that as an okay and released the chair’s restraints. The teen didn’t move much except for moving his feet back and forth a bit to get the blood flowing again. That felt so much better, and it showed a little of his face. 

“Can I see your hands?” Steve asked. He had his reservations about this, but he was going to talk to Tony about this afterwards. 

Silently, MXR-P616 held his wrists out to be cuffed, and there was something about how stoic this kid was about this that panged his heart. Maybe… maybe that was why Tones seemed so taken by this kid? It did hurt to see, it wasn’t like he was heartless. He knew what Hydra could do, he’d helped Bucky through it before, but they still needed to be careful. 

“What do you say, Cap? We good to go?” Tony asked, opening up the door as Steve finished up. 

“Yeah… yeah, ready,” Steve nodded, nudging the kid’s soldier a little so he’d stand up. MXR-P616’s posture was as stiff as a soldier, and all Rogers could see in this kid was Bucky. It was heartbreaking, but… they could get him through it. He was still going to need to talk to Tony about this. 

“Good. Alright kiddo, you follow me,” Tony waved him forward, and MXR-P616 walked forward in a line almost perfectly straight. It wasn’t natural, especially for a child. Steve stayed close behind the kid Incase he tried anything, which he didn’t, as Tony led them down the hall to a different, more comfortable cell block. Stark opened up the first cell door and held it open for the kid. “Here’s our stop,” he explained. “Your real room should be ready by dinner, but like I said, this should be better for you for now.”

MXR-P616 walked up to the doorway, but stopped right on the edge. A wave of panic crashed through him and slapped him right across the face. His eyes were wide and his breathing picked up as he stared into the room. 

* * *

**_May 27, 2008_ **

_Everything ached terribly as he was literally tossed into the room. The concrete floor scraped his elbows and knees, and the boy struggled to bite his lip to keep himself from crying out in pain. It hurt though, everything ached._

_“Vy ostanetes' zdes' do tekh por, poka ne nauchites' ne govorit' bez ocheredi, vreditel'.”_ **_You will stay here until you learn not to talk out of turn, pest._ ** _The guard spat, slamming the door shut which was loud enough to make Peter— no. No, not Peter. Don’t say that, don’t think that. Not Peter.— to make MXR-P616 flinch._

_The seven year-old sniffled and tried to hold back his tears as he looked around the room. It wasn’t much— small, plain, and practically nothing. There was a toilet, but that was the only bit of furniture in there. It was practically a box, and a few tears rolled down his cheeks._

_Last time he was here, he didn’t leave for… how long was that? When even was that? What did he do? MXR-P616 was struggling to remember._

* * *

  
  


**November 20, 2016**

The room wasn’t much— small, plain, and practically nothing. There was a toilet and twin bed in the corner of the room, but that was the only bit of furniture in there. MXR-P616 felt like he was going to be sick. 

This was just like the isolation room. 

He wasn’t coming out of here. Not for a long, long time.

He was going to starve. Freeze. Suffocate. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t _breathe_. He couldn’t…

“Hey, kid. _Kid_ ,” Tony places a careful had on the boy’s soldier which caused him to jump. MXR-P616 had watery eyes, and while he was trying to compose himself, it was a futile effort. He still looked like he was about to have a panic attack. “You okay? What’s wrong?”

“I-I— could— chair. Chair room,” the teen struggled to get the words out. “Not there… please.”

This was genuine panic, Tony recognized it. And it broke his heart to think something like a room could invoke such fear into a child. So, he closed the door, keeping his hand on the boy’s shoulder to try and be reassuring. “Alright, alright sure,” Tony reassured him. “You don’t have to go in there, promise. We can go back to the other room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pete's getting a name next chapter, I promise.  
> Also sorry if this sucks— I wrote half of this while having the flu, so yaaaaay.  
> \--Samuel


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Each day felt like he was in a different state of mind— some days, he felt like MXR-P616. Who they were making him. Who was void of emotions, silent, and waiting for his orders that just weren’t coming. The perfect little soldier, one might call him._  
> 
> 
> _  
> _Other days, the boy felt like the bad name, Peter. He questioned why any of this was happening,why he couldn’t be himself anymore but instead forced to be someone else. He would tremble in the corners of the cell, sniffling, afraid to cry and longing for a home he forgot the name of, but not the feeling. He was scared to forget that too, and would typically spend that day desperate to paint a face on the blurry people in his memories.__  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is two weeks late, but I had a lot going on IRL. Sorry! Hopefully, y'all still like it though. We're nearly at the halfway point, and let me tell y'all, it's all downhill from here. If you thought there was angst before, then the second half of this fic is going to slap you in this face.

**November 20, 2016**

MXR-P616 felt absolutely humiliated. 

What the hell was he doing? It was just a fucking room. Just a god damned room completely separate from that other one. They were different, obviously! Two completely different places and two completely different sides of the word with two completely different kinds of people in charge of him at the time. It was ridiculous! 

Ridiculous, but his hands still trembled. His knees still buckled. His eyes still watered. Ridiculous. 

* * *

**_June 3, 2008_ **

_ It felt like it had been ages since he left this room. In reality, it had been a week, but to a young child, especially without any sign of time passing, a week could stretch to a lifetime. Each day brought its challenges, and each day, the boy struggled more and more not to crack down from the pressure. He hadn’t seen a single face or heard a single voice other than his own the entire time, and it was driving him crazy!  _

_ Each day felt like he was in a different state of mind— some days, he felt like MXR-P616. Who they were making him. Who was void of emotions, silent, and waiting for his orders that just weren’t coming. The perfect little soldier, one might call him.  _

_ Other days, the boy felt like the bad name, Peter. He questioned why any of this was happening,why he couldn’t be himself anymore but instead forced to be someone else. He would tremble in the corners of the cell, sniffling, afraid to cry and longing for a home he forgot the name of, but not the feeling. He was scared to forget that too, and would typically spend that day desperate to paint a face on the blurry people in his memories.  _

_ Sometimes, he felt like both these states of mind each had a hold on one of his arms and were yanking them as hard as they could in the respective directions. It was a nameless period of time for when neither Peter nor MXR-P616 were right— Peter would try to remember everything and hold onto those he could dear, and MXR-P616 would essentially slap them out of his hands as a warning to what his handlers could do if they found out. It ached terribly, and his brain itself felt sore from the back and forth.  _

* * *

**November 20, 2016**

Tony led MXR-P616 back with hands on the shaking boy’s shoulders as he guided him. When they arrived back in the original cell, MXR-P616 practically slumped down into the chair and struggled to keep his composure. He squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could and each breath shook him like a leaf in the wind. He didn’t look like a soldier now. No, instead, MXR-P616 looked like a terror-stricken child that would crumple like a dead leaf in the wind that already shook his lungs and back. 

He wasn’t cuffed to the chair-- no, Tony let him be for now. The man wasn’t worried about that right now, but whether or not this kid was about to break on him. Steve closed the door behind Tony when he went into the cell, thinking he needed to have some one-on-one with the kid. However, he did stay very nearby just in case, because taking a chance like this, handcuffed or not, was risky. Steve wasn’t liking taking a risk right now, but it was hard not to be sympathetic.

“Breathe, kid,” Tony tried soothing, but MXR-P616 only felt worse when he did. He wanted to scream for Tony to shut up, to leave him the hell alone. He was his prisoner! Why was he acting like  _ this _ to him? It-- it didn’t make sense..!

“Fine… fine,” MXR-P616 said as stern as he could, but it came out more or less as a hushed whisper. It was clear that he was desperately trying to shove the memories all back down, stop them from pushing through the memory block, even if he wasn’t too successful. The boy was terrified, however, of what else might push through if he allowed that one to. It wasn’t safe. He wasn’t safe.

Tony had kept a hand on the boy’s arm as he sat in the chair trembling, bringing the other chair over as well to sit across from him. He didn’t know what was going through the teen’s head right now, but he knew it couldn’t be anything good. Being with Hydra however long was bound to fuck anyone up in the head-- god knows it did for Barnes-- and with his being a child? Yeah, he wasn’t going to be able to keep it together sometimes. 

The way he flinched whenever Tony would move, the way his body language only seemed to get stiffer.

How he was trying to forcefully calm himself down and only seemed to hurt himself in the process of it.

Tony didn’t know what to do besides just sit still and let the kid ride this wave out, whether his way was healthy or not. It felt like a shitty thing to say, but he didn’t feel like he should try to correct his coping methods just yet. If they were going to help him, they really needed to know what they were dealing with and this was giving Tony a terrible insight. Necessary, yes, but still awful.

It felt like hours had passed when MXR-P616 finally was able to forcibly calm himself from his panic attack. His hyperventilating went away when he seemed to hold his breath-- Tony could’ve sworn this kid was about to pass out-- and while his eyes were still watery when they were opened, he wiped them harshly. As for the shaking, the teen clenched his fists tight enough to turn his knuckles white and pierced the skin of his palms.

“You with me still, kiddo?” Tony asked softly.

MXR-P616 nodded curtly.

“You want to tell me what happened back there?”

The boy didn’t respond this time.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Don’t need help.”

Tony ignored that statement. “It was something about the room, right? Did it remind you of something or somewhere?”

No answer. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I want to help you, and I can’t do that if you don’t give me anything to work with,” Tony explained. “I want to get you out of this cell into a real room like I was talking about before, and we need to make sure that you’re not uncomfortable. Can you tell me what was wrong with that other room?”

MXR-P616 hesitated, then just shook his head ‘no’.

“It’s either help me with this or stay in here, kiddo.” Tony told him.

“Okay,” MXR-P616 said, his voice softer than it had been. “It… the room looked the same.”   
  


“The same?” Tony asked, glad this kid was talking but hating the fearful and haunted look in his eyes, “The same as what? A room back at the Hydra base?”

MXR-P616 nodded.

“What about the room was similar?”

The boy looked confused and Tony could only suppose his vocabulary was very limited, or at least the English was. He could hear the Russian lit to his voice, even if there was some Eastern American mixed in as well, so that probably meant there was more Russian being spoken than anything.    
  
“What looked the same here as it did back with Hydra?” Tony rephrased his question.

“All,” he answered. “‘Xcept the mattress. No mattress with the facility.”

“You didn’t have a bed?” 

“Slept on floor.”

God, this was heartbreaking. “Well, we’ll get you a real bed. It’ll be better for you anyways,” Tony assured. “Can you tell me about what happened in that room?”

Once again, MXR-P616 hesitated, but answered still. “Punishment. Couldn’t leave. Window was gone. Not a lot of food.”

The fact that this kid was saying he didn’t get a lot of food during those times probably meant he was nearly starving, Tony realized. “Well, I promise you that’s not going to be the case here. For security reasons, we’re going to need to keep you in your room for a while, but you’ll get as much food as you’d like and you’ll definitely have windows. There aren’t punishments here.”

As skeptical as he still seemed, MXR-P616 seemed relieved by this as well.

“I’m going to go finish up your room so we can make sure it’s okay for you, alright?” Tony stood up now, putting his chair back. “You gonna be okay in here by yourself for a little bit?”

The kid just nodded.

“Alright, just holler if you need anything. I’m going to have to cuff you back to the chair or Capsicle might rip me a new one, but it’s not for much longer. I promise.”

MXR-P616 stayed silent and still as Tony removed the vibranium handcuffs and restrained him to the chair again. Although he was doing nothing different than he had been, somehow, the teen seemed a little more at ease to Tony. Still very much on edge, yes, but… less. It was progress, no matter how small. 

* * *

**Two and a half hours later…**

As promised, Tony returned a few hours later with Rogers in tow once again. It could’ve been done within an hour, sure, but he wanted to make sure that the guest room was secure enough so the kid wouldn’t need to be cuffed at all and that it was nothing like anything Hydra could have put him through. There was room to decorate and make it the way the boy wanted as his personality developed for real, but not too much where the room looked barren. It was a fine line, but Tony felt like he had found it.

They went through the same routine as before, just a different path. Steve personally still wasn’t entirely sure that the kid was ready to move, but Tony was insistent and he had checked himself that the room was safe and secure. He felt for the kid, but he had to protect the team too. They were his top priority as of right now.

“Alright kid, let’s see how this room is for you. Yeah?” Tony said, opening the door into the guest room, and MXR-P616’s eyes widened. It wasn’t in the frightful way like earlier, but more amazement than anything. The ceilings were high, the windows were so big (and letting in so much light!), and there was so much in here! Bookcases, a bed, a desk, a dresser and closet both filled with different clothes for him, and the bathroom was its own room attached to this already enormous room. The bed alone would have barely fit into his cell, let alone all of this! It was amazing! 

“This… is mine?” MXR-P616 asked, truly amazed.

“Yeah, kid,” Tony smiled, if slightly sadly. This was as happy as they’ve seen this kid and it’s all over a goddamn bedroom. “It’s all yours. Go ahead and check it out. Cap?”

“Got it,” Steve tapped MXR-P616’s shoulder so he’d face him and removed the cuffs from his hands. “Don’t try anything, I don’t want to put these back on you.” He cautioned.

MXR-P616 didn’t respond, instead rubbing his wrists a bit and walking into the room and looking around without actually touching anything.

“You can pick things up and move them around, you know,” Tony assured, leaning against the now closed and locked vibranium door Steve had shut behind him when he left. “It’s all yours.” He moved to go sit down on the edge of the bed now, watching MXR-P616 as he continued to explore. The kid picked up a pencil off of the desk, but soon set it back nearly exactly as it had been. After a few minutes of allowing him to poke around like a pup exploring his new home, Tony spoke up again, “So kid, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

MXR-P616 looked over with a questioning look. “Mission?”

“No, no,” Tony shook his head. “Not a mission. No more missions, kids don’t go on missions.”   
  
“Then what?”

“Why don’t you come sit down by me?” Tony asked first, patting the spot beside him on the bed. The kid looked unsure, but sat down stiffly beside the older man anyways. The cushion underneath felt weird, but not a bad weird. Just… new. “So, and let me just say it’s alright if you can’t do this now and we can always figure something out later, but I was wondering if you could tell me your name?”

“MXR-P616.” The boy answered without hesitation.

“No, not the name Hydra gave you,” Tony explained. “It’s not really a name anyways. I meant a name you had before all of that. Do you remember that?”

“I--... I’m not…” There seemed to be an internal conflict like a hurricane beginning to storm inside the teen’s head.

“I know they probably didn’t want you to say it or remember it, and that’s okay,” Tony prefaced. “But can you try to remember for me? I don’t want to have to constantly be calling you ‘the kid all the time.” he gave a light laugh to try and ease the tension, but MXR-P616 didn’t notice.

* * *

**August 10, 2005**

_ “Vhat is your name?!” The guard screamed at him, kicking the small boy in the side. Usually on one’s birthday, people would scream ‘surprise!’ and one’s heart would be racing from the shock. On one’s birthday, there wasn’t usually an angry man screaming at one and beating them until they were coughing up blood. Especially a child. _

_ Peter had said he wanted to go to the zoo for his birthday when he was with mommy and daddy. He wanted to see the giraffes, he said, because he wanted to be as big as they were one day. They were going to have birthday brownies-- brownies were so much better than cake, in his opinion-- with whip cream on top. It was simple, but it was what he had wanted. _

_ And here he was. _

_ About four months later, not that Peter had any idea how much time was passing him by, and he was celebrating his fourth birthday by getting in the stomach by a stranger that was trying to convince him that his name was some number. He was wrong, his name was Peter! He didn’t want to be MX.. whatever. He wanted to Peter, like his mommy told him she chose for him, and he wanted to go home and hug her so tight and just never let go. _

_ “Otvet' mne!”  _ **_Answer me!_ ** _ The man screamed. Peter didn’t know exactly what that meant, but by now, he knew it meant they wanted him to say something. He was learning, sort of. _

_ “I-I’m-- I’m Peter--” A kick to the mouth and those wiggly teeth of his were knocked right out. Peter nearly choked on them, coughing out the blood and teeth onto the floor, and cried some more. _

_ “Nepravil'no!”  _ **_Wrong!_ **

_ Peter knew what that meant, too. That meant he messed up. _

_ The boy was grabbed by his hair curls and yanked up onto his feet by the guard, who squatted down to be at his level. He scowled, practically spitting at the sobbing child as he spoke slowly, “Vhat. Is. Your. Name?” _

_ “M’ name…” Peter sniffled. He wanted to say his name, his real name, but he hurt so bad and just wanted to be left alone. “M’ name’s MXR… MXR-P...616.” _

_ He was dropped. _

* * *

**November 20, 2016**

“It’s… it’s Peter.” And then he flinched as though waiting to be hit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, now I don't have to write MXR-P616 every time and just type Peter!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was still dark outside when Peter shot up from the bed, screaming and tears streaming down his face. He felt like his heart was in his throat and he couldn’t breathe. Everything felt wrong, the walls felt like they were closing in all around, and someone had their hand around his throat and was squeezing all the air out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If y'all thought the flashbacks before were bad, hopefully, the bar for bad has been raised by the end of this chapter :)

**November 20, 2016**

Tony honestly was surprised the kid was even able to remember this information, but he supposed that was a good thing. He obviously had heavy Hydra programming in his brain, but it hadn’t gotten everywhere. The kid-- Peter-- had held on to as much as he could. Peter… that suited the teen. The man’s heart hurt to see how fearful Peter looked right now, but this was progress still. He was proud of him for being able to say that.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you,” Tony assured Peter, placing a hand on the boy’s knee. He flinched again and from the light touch alone, Stark could feel how tense he was.

“Not s’pposed to say that…” Peter had mumbled, clearly regretting his decision.

“It’s okay, you’re allowed to say that here,” He explained. “No one is going to be mad at you or punish you for saying anything here. It’s not like Hydra.”

Peter found that hard to believe, no matter how hopeful he was. It was all he knew, after all. 

“Do you remember a lot from before Hydra got to you?” Tony asked him. 

Peter shook his head in response. “Not supposed to.”

Tony bit his lip, reconsidering his question. “Well, even though you’re not supposed to according to them, you’re allowed to here. In fact, if you do have any memories, we’d probably want to work on reaching them and opening that part of your brain back up. You deserve to have your memories, kiddo. So, is there anything else?”

After a moment of consideration, he gave the briefest nod. Ting probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if he hadn’t been paying attention to the boy so carefully. 

“You want to tell me about it?” 

This time, a head shake. 

“Alright, that’s fine. You don’t have to,” Tony reassured. “You’re free to talk to me whenever you’d like, Peter, but you don’t have to.”

“Thank you, sir…” Peter mumbled quietly. 

“You can call me Tony, y’know?” The man stood up, having thought about his words carefully so the kid didn’t feel like he had to do anything. Peter had just nodded in response to the request, however. “Alright, well, I’ve got a few things I need to take care of, but feel free to explore your room. For now, you have to stay in here, but we’ll work on that. Just holler if you need anything, okay?” Tony had made his way to the door. 

“Okay,” Peter responded verbally this time around. 

“Okay,” Tony smiled before heading out the door. 

Tony came back with dinner several hours later, and as usual, they ate their food together. Friday was monitoring Peter throughout the day and giving Tony updates on his behavior, none that showed any danger towards himself or others. Some was strange, like sitting perfectly still up to forty five minutes and climbing the walls, but nothing terrible. And when Tiny came back in not too long after he took their dinner plates away, he saw Peter take an interest in the bookshelves and offered to read him one of them. The kid could read, but only barely. At most, it was a second or third grade level of reading, but they were going to work on that. 

And at the end of the day, Peter even fell asleep on his bed. 

* * *

  
  


**_March 24, 2011_ **

_ After what felt like ages of training in the facility, after five years of never leaving this building— not that he knew it— they were all finally getting out. MXR-P616 had been training as long as he could remember, so he knew that this whole endeavor had to go right— his handlers would accept nothing less, if even that.  _

_ Something that MXR-P616 had been able to remember and noticed as time passed we’re the new faces that would pop up every once in a while. They were all smaller than the guards, like him, and they had serial numbers, like him. There were ten of them all together— well, nine now after QXJ-M904 tried to escape and was set to self destruct... The guards called them the ‘Weapons’, which MXR-P616 supposed wasn’t wrong. They were, in fact, weapons. They were also called ‘Recruits’ by some, giving a more military feel to their existence, but more so ‘Weapons’ than that. _

_ They were going to have real missions soon, though. Real missions, just like the Soldier! The Winter Soldier was truly an example to them all, and the guards treated him much nicer than any of the Weapons, MXR-P616 had observed. He didn’t like the idea of hurting people, but he didn’t like getting hurt either. He was going to be like the Soldier. Things were going to be better when he was. _

_ For now, however, MXR-P616 knew he needed to focus on the mission at hand. They said that this mission was going to prove who had the capacity to become the next Winter Soldier and potentially, based on performance, begin training with him. It was sort of exciting, there weren’t many things to look forward to, but also quite daunting. This wasn’t a simulation, this was real. This was dangerous. The ten of them were truly raiding a secure base of an organization they were not told the name of. It wasn’t relevant, it had been explained. They didn’t need to know what this place was, but simply that there was a chemical vial somewhere in there that they had to retrieve. _

_ In and out, retrieve the vial-- potentially vials?-- and no witnesses. _

_ Easy. _

_ Supposedly. _

_ It was supposed to be easy, but then everything changed. MXR-P616 didn’t know if their administrators had thrown them into No Man’s Land after hiking an hour across the tundra on purpose or not, but that was irrelevant right now. He just wanted to survive. _

_ They hid behind boulders and pounds of snow as gunshots rained down from the sky. The more they fell, the more red splatters appeared on the snow. There were gasps, chokes, and the very beginnings of a scream, but no one actually did. The sounds were so quiet as bodies collapsed down onto the snow, but because of his enhanced senses, MXR-P616 was still able to pick up on it. He hated it, it terrified him, but he couldn’t let it show. Their administrators were listening in through ear pieces, they would know. They would not be happy. So, even as their fellow soldiers were falling left and right, as children were falling left and right, MXR-P616 and the remaining weapons knew they had to persevere. They had no choice. _

_ Bullets rained from the sky, yes, but it wasn’t like they didn’t put up a fight. The recruits peaked their heads around their cover and rained their own hell, but it seemed they were outnumbered ten to one. The Hydra recruits took out their fair share of opponents, but they kept coming out with more. More soldiers. More firearms. It was like this was a suicide mission.  _

_ The open-fire had only been going on for about seven minutes, and it seemed MXR-P616 and another recruit-- a girl with the serial number KTS-O245-- picked the safest spot. How did he know? Well, they were the only ones left alive right now. MXR-P616 looked to her as if to see if she had any sort of plan in mind and it looked as though she did. Just not one he had been expecting. There was a fiery determination in her eyes with underlying terror in them, and that gaze avoided MXR-P616’s completely.”...My mozhete sbezhat'.”  _ **_We can escape._ **

_ MXR-P616 felt a prickle on the back of his neck that raised the hairs-- danger.  _

_ She stood up. _

_ KTS-O245 had stood up, hands in the air in surrender while dropping her weapons into the snow, stepping out front of the rock MXR-P616 was still hiding behind. All guns were trained on the girl now and before they could fire, she shouted, “Podozhdite!”  _ **_Wait!_ **

_ “Derzhi svoy ogon'!” _ **_Hold your fire!_ ** _ The opposing general screamed. _

_ “Mne nuzhna pomoshch', pozhaluysta,”  _ **_I need help, please,_ ** _ KTS-O245 cried, pulling her mask off to reveal her youth. “Oni zabrali menya iz moyey sem'i, ya khochu domoy! Pozhaluysta, pozhaluysta, pomogite mne!”  _ **_They took me from my family, I want to go home! Please, please help me!_ **

_ “Soldaty. Prekratit' predatelya.”  _ **_Soldier. Terminate the traitor._ ** _ His handler spoke through his ear piece and MXR-P616 felt his heart drop through the floor. _

_ No. _

_ No way. _

_ She was one of them, he couldn’t do that! _

_ Strangers were one thing, and that was overwhelming already. One of their own? Someone he had trained with? The only other one of them left?  _

_ He was going to be the only one left. _

_ He wasn’t going to get out of here alive, was he? _

_ MXR-P616 knew he would be terminated if he didn’t follow direct orders, but… he was scared. Terrified. Tears pricked his eyes as should never happen with a soldier on duty. He wasn’t a child, he was a weapon! He had a job to do, dammit! _

_ Get your fucking head right! _

_ “Soldaty! Ty slushayesh'? Prekratit' KTS-O245, prezhde chem my unichtozhim vas!”  _ **_Soldier! Are you listening? Terminate KTS-O245 before we terminate you as well!_ ** _ It was so loud that it caused a ringing in MXR-P616’s ear. There was an electrical prickle on the back of his neck-- not his sense, the chip--, and the boy immediately raised his weapon at his fellow soldier. The opponents were seeming to try and determine if she was lying or not still, clearly unaware of his presence. They would know if he shot her, MXR-P616 thought. He could bury himself under the snow and hide out, he thought, but… he didn’t want to do this. _

_ “Posledniy shans.”  _ **_Last chance._ **

_ MXR-P616 pulled the trigger, and more snow turned red. _

* * *

**_November 21, 2016_ **

It was still dark outside when Peter shot up from the bed, screaming and tears streaming down his face. He felt like his heart was in his throat and he couldn’t breathe. Everything felt wrong, the walls felt like they were closing in all around, and someone had their hand around his throat and was squeezing all the air out of it.

_ They’re gonna hurt me, _ Peter thought in his panic, his entire body shaking violently, and he ended up sitting with his knees to his chest in the corner of the room while crying hysterically.  _ They’re gonna find me. Punish me. Kill me. I’m gonna self destruct  _

“Peter?” Came a frantic voice from the other side of the bedroom’s door and the boy’s breath hitched in fear. He couldn’t tell if Hydra was going to be coming in at any moment to drag him by the ankles off to be punished, and likely nearly killed as well.

It turned out to be Tony, not his administrators. Tony… he hadn’t hurt him yet. God, he hoped he didn’t have to worry about him doing that. He couldn’t handle that, not right now at least. Not tonight.

“Peter, kid. Hey,” Tony whispered softly, kneeling down in front of the hysterical boy. When did he come in here? The, what to Peter was, sudden appearance of the man frightened him more and he pushed himself desperately back into his corner.

“I-I’m sorry, sir…” Peter mumbled between sobs, knowing he had to apologize for his horrid behavior but at the same time, just unable to stop it. He hated that memory, it felt haunting. That girl’s choked gasp as she crumbled to the ground, her eyes rolled up as though to stare him down where he hid as she bled out into the snow… knowing. She said  _ ‘we’ _ can escape. She was new, she knew. She may have remember the outside. She wanted to get him out too, and… he killed her dead. Peter-- no, no he wasn’t Peter then. He was MXR-P616-- killed her in cold blood, as cold as that snow he nearly froze to death under and borderline suffocated under for forty-five minutes- something that had a twenty percent survival rate. Sometimes he wished he had.

He was terrible. He couldn’t do anything correct.

He couldn’t follow orders properly.

He couldn’t remember right.

He couldn’t even fucking calm down right now!

“Hey, hey it’s okay kiddo. You’re okay,” Tony hummed. He felt out of his depth, but he couldn’t just leave this kid like this. “You don’t have to apologize, you’ve done nothing wrong. I promise. It’s okay, just let it out.” Tony held his hand out to Peter. “Is it okay if a touch you?”

Peter was hesitant, but eventually, he just nodded. He didn’t take the hand, still very wracked with nerves right now, but didn’t pull away when Tony moved to sit beside him and pulled him into a tight hug. In fact, he even buried himself a little into the him as he cried himself dry. He only stopped when he eventually fell asleep against Tony, who held him close all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'd say we're halfway there now, folks :) We'll have some softness in the next chapter, but all and all, we're gonna hurt a lot. Sorry!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s opening up to me, I’m getting somewhere. I don’t give a fuck if you say it’s too dangerous or whatever, because trust goes both ways and we need him to trust us or we will lose this kid.”
> 
> He wanted to help this kid through it and develop healthy coping mechanisms. Stark knew all too well about desperately wanting to block out the memories and not deal with them, trying everything under the sun for a drop of serotonin, and that all started around when he was this kid’s age. Of course, given that their fourteen to fifteen age estimate was accurate.
> 
> He wasn’t going to let the kid suffer. He couldn’t!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the delays, guys. I really am. I'm in this creative writing class for college credits on top of my preexisting school work, so I'm writing a chapter for that every week on top of trying to work on this. I still have that class even though we're quarantined, but I'm trying to get as much to you guys as I can. Mental health has taken a bit of a slide, but I'll be fine I just need to get back and make myself write more because that's made starting writing a little tricky. 
> 
> I'm sorry this chapter is sort of short and a filler, but we're getting up to the Big Angst I swear.

**November 21, 2016**

Upon waking up, once again, Peter felt like shit. Absolutely awful. He just wanted to curl up in a hole where no one would find him ever again. He could survive on his own, he knew how. And then, this humiliating emotional shit wouldn’t be an issue. Right? Sure, he would truly be alone then, but if he was alone, no one could hurt him. He’d be without a doubt safe if he were alone.

The first thing Peter noticed when he woke up was the hold around him-- someone else was here. Typically, if someone was in the room when he woke up, that meant he was in danger. He was going to be hurt. And this hold? While it in itself wasn’t threatening, Peter’s experiences lead his brain to processing all physical contact as a danger and that he had made some sort of terrible mistake that was bound to lead to a beating. 

So, Peter did the only thing he thought a rational reaction to this problem to be-- slip out of Tony’s arms while he was still asleep and hurried into the bathroom where he sat against the tub in the corner.

* * *

“So,” Steve began as he walked into the room, and immediately, Tony already felt exhausted. He was in for some sort of lecture, that much was obvious. 

_Probably about the kid_ , Stark thought. Peter had a rough night, and Tony barely slept in his attempt to console the kid. And when he woke up? The teen was out of his arms and according to Friday, had locked himself in the bathroom forty minutes earlier with no intention of coming out of there any time soon. And that was how Tony got to be sitting in his workshop, surrounded by unfinished blueprints.

“Look, Capsicle, I know some of the shit I’m doing for the kid might be risky, but I don’t care.”

“Tony--”

“He’s a kid, okay? A _kid_. You can’t expect me to just not give a shit about his age just because he’s dangerous,” Tony argued, determined to get what he had to say out there. He needed to explain himself before anyone made absurd ass assumptions about who knows what because that’s what happened every time. 

“ _Tony--_ ”

“And is what I’m doing so different than when you were helping Barnes? He needs someone Steve, and we don’t know if there’s any family out there for him to get him through this and Hydra out of his head.” Peter seemed as fragile as glass, and the more time he spent here, the more cracks were showing. Soon enough, it would shatter completely, but Tony didn’t want to force that all at once. He was making progress, Peter wasn’t a lost cause. They couldn’t give up on him.“He’s opening up to me, I’m getting somewhere. I don’t give a fuck if you say it’s _too dangerous_ or whatever, because trust goes both ways and we need him to trust us or we will lose this kid.”

He wanted to help this kid through it and develop healthy coping mechanisms. Stark knew all too well about desperately wanting to block out the memories and not deal with them, trying everything under the sun for a drop of serotonin, and that all started around when he was this kid’s age. Of course, given that their fourteen to fifteen age estimate was accurate.

He wasn’t going to let the kid suffer. He couldn’t!

“Tony!” Steve raised his voice, trying to get the other man’s attention now. 

It worked, he stopped in his tracks, and just sighed. “What?”

Steve’s expression softened as he began to speak, “Look, I’ll admit I am a little sceptic of how you’re going about this--” Stark opened his mouth, as though to interrupt, so the soldier sped up. “-- _but_ I understand. I worry about the safety of the team, but you’re right. He’s still dangerous, but like you said, he’s a child. Friday showed me some of the clips of the two of you talking, and honestly? I think it’s working. It took Bucky a while to really trust me again, but when he was starting to, it looked like how Peter is.” He paused a moment. “He said Peter, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony nodded, unable to help a faint smile of relief that he wasn’t’ being undermined right now. “Yeah, he said 'Peter'. I don’t know how much he remembers, but..”

“But it is a good sign that he held onto that.”

“Exactly.”

“It makes breaking out of Hydra’s mindset easier if part of him felt it was wrong.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

For a moment, there was some peace. Mutual understanding, agreement, and Tony was just glad to have someone who understood what he was trying to do here and was willing to offer advice. Of course, Peter and Bucky were very different cases, but incredibly similar at the same time. Talking to Barnes, Tony considered, might even do Peter some good. But not yet, not right now. They didn’t want to overwhelm by introducing more new people all too soon. 

“So, Tones, what I came here to say…” Steve began, and of course, there was bad news. There always was, wasn’t there.

“What happened?”

Steve hesitated, and sadly, said, “We’re trying to figure out how it got leaked, but Fury knows about the kid. He wants to come here, take him, and bring him to SHEILD.”

Instantly, Tony was seeing red. “No.”

“Nat said he’s planning on coming by tomorrow.”

“I don’t care, he’s not allowed here then. He’s not getting his grimy ass hands on this kid only to just do the exact same shit Hydra was doing to him and try and make him into a mini soldier!”

“I know,” Steve consoled. “I don’t like it either, but I thought you should know in case he does show up. I want to protect this kid too, you know.”

“Then help me keep Fury as far from him as possible.” Tony answered, plain and simple. “And find out whoever snitched to him too.”

This kid was already so traumatized, he didn’t need to deal with this mess too. When they were simply moving him to a different room, Peter thought they were handing him off to some other organization and there was no way in hell Tony was going to let any of his fears come true. That seemed to have happened enough in his life so far.

“I’m sure the other’s will help, too.”

“Good..” Although there was far more tension in Tony’s shoulder’s now than the beginning of the conversation, there was some relief in knowing he wasn’t going to be alone in this. “Oh, did we get anywhere in missing person’s reports that might fit him?”

“Not yet,” Steve answered. “But now that we have his name, that should limit the search considerably and answers our question if he was ever a missing person or born into Hydra. They wouldn’t have given him a name if not.”

“He could’ve been sold.” As painful as it was to say it, it was the truth.

Steve frowned. “You’re… I hate that we need to consider that but you’re right. If he can remember a last name at all, that would be fantastic.”

“I’ll see what I can get out of him,” Tony nodded, getting up from where he was sitting. Kid was going to need breakfast. “It might take a while, if he even has that memory still.”

“It can take a while to get through the blocks.”

“Yeah, yeah I can see that.”

“If there’s anything I can do--”

“--I’ll give you the word, Cap. Promise.” Tony offered a brief smile before heading off to the kitchen.

* * *

“Hey, Pete,” Tony knocked on the door. “Mind if I come in?”

There was quiet, and then some shuffling. This kid seemed to prefer staying quiet than actually speaking, and while that was fine, it was likely a survival tactic that Tony needed to show that he didn’t need anymore.

The door handle moved once-- the door couldn’t be opened on Peter’s side, only if Friday unlocked it-- and Tony took that answer as a ‘yes’. So, he came in with a tray of breakfast straight off the stove. Eggs, bacon, toast, the whole nine yards. He brought juice for Peter, apple this time and coffee for himself, and sat the kid’s plate on the nightstand besides the bed while sitting at the desk himself. Peter was sitting crossed-crossed practically in the center of the bed, posture perfect like a soldier's, and seemed to be waiting for Tony’s permission to eat.

“It’s okay, bud. You don’t have to ask, you can just dig in if that’s what you want,” Tony reassured with a kind smile. He was trying to avoid actually telling Peter to do anything, wanting to make sure he knew he had a choice in the matter of everything.

Still, in the beginning stages, this sort of reassurance was necessary, as that was seen as permission in Peter’s eyes. He took the plate, sat it in front of him, and practically inhaled his food.

“If you ever want more, you can tell me, yeah?” Tony threw out there. “We could probably even take a walk to the kitchen and you can pick out something to try. Want to do that for lunch today?”

After a moment, the teen nodded, and they ate their food in comfortable silence.

Once they were done, Tony took the practically spotless plate and glass from Peter, asking the kid if that was okay first, to put on the tray that would head back to the kitchen when he went for a coffee refill. The man couldn’t help but take a look at the bruising going around Natasha’s device on the back of Peter’s neck though, frowning.

“You mind if I sit by you?” 

Peter answered by scooting over to allow Tony more room. The kid hadn’t said a word yet, but given the nightmare incident, the man could only assume there was embarrassment. So, to try and ease the tension and show it was okay to be informal and comfortable, Stark dramatically sighed in relief as he laid down on the bed next to him. He could’ve sworn he saw the slightest twinge of a smile on Peter’s lips when he did that. Fantastic.

“Y’know,” Tony began. “It’s alright to let someone know if anything is bothering you. We won’t get mad here, promise. Even if it’s something small, like your neck hurting.”

Peter subconsciously brought his hand up to the back of his neck, cupping the device and chip underneath the skin.

“I can ask Natasha to flip the switch and get that thing off you. I trust you, and don’t think you need it. I’m sure she’d agree.”  
  
Peter tensed for a reason Tony couldn’t yet determine, and sternly, told him, “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also mini self-update: so if you couldn't tell by my icon, I'm transgender (trans man), so that typically means I picked my name. And I did, I had picked Samuel. But, and I'll spare you all the details of my personal life because it is _my_ personal life, I've decided to change that now. I've wanted to for a while, but from now on, I'm going by Mason. I know it doesn't make a huge difference to y'all, but with my little sign off at the end and everything sooooo yeah.  
> -Mason


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No.” Peter repeated after seeing the look of confusion on Tony’s face. He was typically quite afraid of objecting to anything, but he was standing his ground here. The fact that he seemed to prioritize the device on his neck more than what would be his safety if he were back at Hydra brought Tony a sickening feeling, and even more so when he couldn’t figure out exactly why the kid was objecting. It was bruising him, it must be uncomfortable. Why wouldn’t he want that off?
> 
>  _Maybe it’s some sort of way of punishing himself?_ Tony considered. He didn’t like the thought, but it was, unfortunately, quite plausible. 
> 
> “Kid, it’s okay, you know,” the man tried to assure him. “You don’t have to be monitored and tracked like an animal, you’re a person. We only did that as a safety precaution in case you tried to escape.” Tony cringed, that sounded so wrong. Hydra had held him prisoner, and Peter didn’t need to feel as though the same thing was happening here. “Okay, let me rephrase that-- before we knew what happened to you, I mean, we thought you might’ve tried to get back to Hydra. Obviously, they’re dangerous to begin with, and we didn’t want to risk.. That.”
> 
> He was so bad at this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay y'all, we're in the endgame now. Things are going to get rough from here on out. Sorry this one was a little shorter, again, but we're leading up to something I hope y'all'll think was worth it. Anyways, enjoy!

**May 29, 2010**

_ MXR-P616 grunted as he repeatedly attacked the dummy before him with a military grade pocket knife, said attacks ranging from a combination of dodges and flips into the attack to a laceration along what would be an artery or a vein. He had to be quieter about this, the boy reminded himself. He couldn’t help it with the amount of force he was applying in his attacks, but that didn’t mean his superiors would be any happier with that as the result. No, no they were supposed to be so silent that even an untrained ear wouldn’t notice them.  _

_ “Opyat' taki,”  _ **_Again,_ ** _ ordered their superior officer. Some of his spit landed on the back of the young soldier’s neck, but he had to ignore it as they all repeated the attack. It was half of them in here now, working on sharp force trauma attacks while the others did the drills on blunt force trauma.  _

_ MXR-P616 considered himself lucky to be in this group, because it was simply practicing technique. With blunt force? There was technique practice, of course, but also endurance. How much you could take of it. They didn’t have to see how long they could go with a stab wound here… yet. Better not to acknowledge that fact though, just to be sure he didn’t somehow jinx it. MXR-P616 had had a blade plunged into his right calf as punishment once and was forced to do a hundred push-ups with the group afterwards. That had been… horrible, to say the least. Once he had finished, the boy had promptly passed out from blood loss and spent the next three days in their sorry excuse for a medical bay with zero pain killers.  _

_ But that was what he got for speaking out of turn right after stepping out of line. Right? Right. _

_ “Opyat' taki.”  _ **_Again._ **

_ Training was interrupted suddenly as the door was slammed open by one of the administrators monitoring the other group, dragging a bloodied and battered recruit in by his hair. Tears on the darker boy’s face was mixed with blood, blood he proceeded to cough up as well. _

_ “Vnimaniye!”  _ **_Attention!_ ** _ The man who had just entered screamed. _

_ “Formirovaniye, seychas.”  _ **_Formation, now._ ** _ The guard who had been with them since the beginning spat again, and almost all at once, MXR-P616 and the other child soldiers dropped their weapons-- funny, they gave their weapons weapons-- and stood in their lineup in less than fifteen seconds. They’d been trained well. _

_ “Vy mozhete poblagodarit' etu bespoleznuyu mraz' za to, chto prervali vashe obucheniye segodnya,”  _ **_You may thank this worthless scum for interrupting your training today,_ ** _ seithed the second adminstrator, yanking the boy, RXJ-M907, up onto his feet despite the fact he looked close to collapsing. “No u nas yest' predatel' sredi nas. On byl poyman pri popytke k begstvu, i my otkazyvayemsya terpet' etot tip neuvazheniya ot vas, lyudey s nizkim urovnem zhizni! Nakazaniye v poryadke, i vam, krysam, pora posmotret', chto na samom dele delayut vashi fishki.”  _ **_But we have a traitor in our midst. It was caught attempting to escape, and we refuse to tolerate this type of disrespect from you low lifes! Punishment is in order, and it's time for you rats to witness what it is your chips really do._ **

_ MXR-P616 felt a pit growing in his stomach, although he refused to let it show anywhere in his body language. He knew better, Although, MXR-P616 also knew that public punishments were the most horrific ones of all. He pitied RXJ-M907, though he couldn’t help but be thankful he wasn’t in his position. He may have been a comfort when they were going under the experimentations-- MXR-P616 and RXJ-M907 had both been apart of the experiments with the radioactive spiders-- but if he volunteered in his place, it would mean certain death. _

_ With as much pain as RXJ-M907 was clearly in, he still managed to have a glimmer of strength in his eyes. He was hurting, but did not regret a thing he did. It… it was almost inspiring, knowing that the guards clearly tried but failed to break him… _

_ No, no don’t think like that. _

_ You’ll end up there. _

_ Forced to stand on his own, RXJ-M907 looked amongst his fellow recruits. “Vam ne nuzhno delat' to, chto oni govoryat. Ty ne prinadlezhish'--”  _ **_You don't have to do what they say. You don't belong to--_ ** _ he had begun to say, interrupting the tangent their commanding officer was going on about obedience. _

_ A vein practically popped out of the man’s forehead upon being blatantly interrupted. “Molchat’!”  _ **_Silence!_ ** _ He screamed, pressing down on a small device he had been holding in his blood stained hand. _

_ Immediately, RXJ-M907 let out a blood curdling scream as he collapsed on the floor, writhing in agony. MXR-P616 could practically see the sparks jumping off the boy no older than ten years old and the smell of burning flesh filled his sensitive nose. That wasn’t one someone could ever truly forget.The boy felt like he was going to be sick the entire time this horrid show was being displayed in front of him. Every fiber screamed at him to either escape the dangerous sparks or help RXJ-M907 who spasmed helplessly on the floor, even when the screams died in his throat.  _

_ Still fuming, the same officer bumped MXR-P616’s shoulder as he walked out of the room. “Vy. Uberi eto.”  _ **_You. Clean this up._ **

_ And with a silent nod of obedience, not wanting to end up like the boy made into an example, MXR-P616 did so. _

* * *

**November 21, 2016**

“No.” Peter repeated after seeing the look of confusion on Tony’s face. He was typically quite afraid of objecting to anything, but he was standing his ground here. The fact that he seemed to prioritize the device on his neck more than what would be his safety if he were back at Hydra brought Tony a sickening feeling, and even more so when he couldn’t figure out exactly why the kid was objecting. It was bruising him, it must be uncomfortable. Why wouldn’t he want that off?

_ Maybe it’s some sort of way of punishing himself? _ Tony considered. He didn’t like the thought, but it was, unfortunately, quite plausible. 

“Kid, it’s okay, you know,” the man tried to assure him. “You don’t have to be monitored and tracked like an animal, you’re a person. We only did that as a safety precaution in case you tried to escape.” Tony cringed, that sounded so wrong. Hydra had held him prisoner, and Peter didn’t need to feel as though the same thing was happening here. “Okay, let me rephrase that-- before we knew what happened to you, I mean, we thought you might’ve tried to get back to Hydra. Obviously, they’re dangerous to begin with, and we didn’t want to risk.. That.”

He was so bad at this.

“Wrong.” Peter shook his head.    
  
“Peter, I know it must be hard to believe after everything you went through, but--”

“No, I know  _ that, _ ” Peter corrected. Yeah, he knew he was a person here, even if the feeling was foreign, but he needed Tony to understand what he meant. 

“Okay… can you tell me what the problem is?” he raised a brow, seeing the gears turning in the boy’s head as he seemed to try and pick his words.

“I--...”

“Take your time, kiddo. Just say how you feel, you won’t get in trouble. I promise.”

“I want it off,” That wording felt so off to Peter. So much so he even cringed a little bit. “But can’t. Not safe.”

“Do you… do you think you would try to hurt people here if you didn’t have that to worry about?” Tony tried to understand. He liked to think that the kid wouldn’t, but he understood that Hydra had programmed so much into Peter’s brain that the impulses are more likely than not very much present.    
  
But Peter shook his head.

“Then why isn’t it safe?”

Now came the tricky part for Peter-- explaining something. He understood things people would say to him, easily, and while his reading level wasn’t high for someone his age, he could read basic instructions. However, actually communicating himself was something he had very little experience in and it proved itself to be quite the challenge. 

Peter brought his hand to the back of his neck, feeling around the device that had been placed by Natasha and felt the bump right underneath where his chip was. “They… there’s another one. Inside.”

“Another… what?” Tony tilted his head in confusion. “Tracker?”

“Called it a ‘chip’.”

And the puzzle pieces were connecting. The fear when Nat stunned him-- that must be a feature of this chip Peter said was implanted in his neck. He must’ve thought that Hydra was watching him and decided to… nope, don’t finish that thought. 

“Okay, let me get this straight. So, they implanted a chip in your neck there?” Tony asked.

Peter nodded. 

“And you’re afraid that if we take off Nat’s little tracker there, it’ll be functional? And Hydra will hurt you?”

Another nod, and god dammit, this kid couldn’t get a break, could he? How many times throughout the day did he feel something on his neck and wonder if it was Hydra?

“Can you tell me about the chip, bud?” Tony asked gently, placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder as the teen brought his own hand down. 

“We all got one.”

“All? There are more kids like you?”

“Gone now.” There was a haunted look in Peter’s eyes, and it broke his heart. This kid was lucky to be alive, and Tony didn’t want to know how many children Hydra had stolen and murdered. He needed a drink…

“It… it tells them where we are,” Peter went on to explain. “If we’re alive. It-- if we fail, it hurts. Like the… tracker.”

“It electrocutes?”

A nod.

Tony sighed, running a hand down his face. How the hell were they going to fix this? They have to get the chip out. “Can I see?” Tony asked Peter, pointing to the back of his own neck. With another nod, the boy turned to have his back facing the older man. Stark lightly ran his thumb around the heavily scarred tissue and felt the bump. 

_ It can’t be too deep under the skin, _ Tony thought.  _ Not like this. _

“Alright, I have an idea on how we can get that chip out of you without risking you being hurt or Hydra finding you,” Stark said after a moment, and Peter turned back to face him with surprise on his face. How could Tony have already figured this out?

“We have some very talented doctors--”

“ _ No doctors. _ ” There was so much urgency in Peter’s tone, he just wanted to hug him.

“Kiddo, Pete, I promise you the doctors we have here are nothing like whatever ones are back at Hydra. They want to help people here, not hurt them.”

“They said they were helping…”

Tony wrapped his arm around the boy’s shoulders now and pulled him into a gentle side hug. “Look, I’m not going to force you to do anything because that isn’t fair to you, but I can promise you that no one will hurt you here. I won’t let anyone.”

Peter just stayed quiet.

“You don’t have to make any decisions today,” Tony continued. “But I think it would be a good idea, even if we just go meet with one of the doctors so I can show you they won’t hurt you. If you wanted, I’m sure they could get the chip out without endangering you at all. Plus, a doctor might be able to help us find out more about you.”   
  
That peaked Peter’s interest as he looked up at Tony with confusion. “How?”

“Well, they’re very smart people. They have ways to find out how old you are and if you’re healthy without hurting you,” Tony explained to the boy, trying to make it understandable to him. “...And, they can safely take some of your blood, if you wanted, and try to see if they can find any of your family.”

Honestly? Tony had grown attached to this kid and wanted to be there with him personally to help him get better-- another reason why he wasn’t going to let Fury get anywhere near the kid-- but if Peter still had family out there, he couldn’t hide him from them. If they were decent people, of course, because Tony wasn’t going to let anything else happen to this kid. 

“My family?” Peter asked hesitantly. “I… I have one?”

“Everyone has a family, kiddo. You had to come from somewhere,” Tony smiled sadly. “And it doesn’t have to be the same blood if we can’t find anyone that way. Sometimes, you find your family a different way. Family is just a group of people, small or big, that care about you and want to be there for you.”   
  
“Like you?”

Well, Tony didn’t need his heart anyways, because it had just been ripped from his chest. “Yeah. Yeah, Pete. If you want, like me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five chapters left now! 2/3 finished here, and I'll be honest, I'm already planning out a Star Wars AU in my head to do when this is all over and done with. Anyways, see y'all again next week! 
> 
> (Also, I'm planning on doing a live fic writing session in the future and wanted to get y'all's input because it's gonna be a thing where y'all pick the prompt and ideas and such. I made a google classroom where I'm gonna ask y'all questions and such about it, so here's the code if anyone is interested at all: b7ksgqu . Hope to see some of you there!)
> 
> -Mason

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all're amazing people and thanks so much for reading! <3


End file.
